AEO Glossary:
AI SEO Terms Defined
AI Engine Optimization comes with its own vocabulary. Whether you are new to AEO or brushing up on the latest terms, this glossary covers everything you need to know — in plain language, no jargon overload.
35 terms defined | Last updated: February 2026
AEO (AI Engine Optimization)
The practice of optimizing your website so AI-powered search engines and assistants can find, understand, and recommend your content. AEO goes beyond traditional SEO by focusing on how AI reads and cites your site, not just how it ranks in search results. Think of it as making your site fluent in the language AI speaks.
AI Crawler
A bot deployed by AI companies to scan and index web content for use in training or real-time retrieval. Unlike traditional search engine crawlers that index for search results, AI crawlers gather content that AI models use to generate answers. Examples include GPTBot (OpenAI), ClaudeBot (Anthropic), and PerplexityBot.
AI Discoverability
A measure of how easily AI engines can find and access your content. This includes factors like whether your robots.txt allows AI crawlers, whether your content is behind paywalls or heavy JavaScript, and whether your site loads fast enough for automated scanning. High discoverability means AI can actually reach your content in the first place.
AI Overview (Google)
Google's AI-generated summary that appears at the top of search results, synthesizing information from multiple sources to answer a query directly. Also known as SGE (Search Generative Experience). Websites optimized for AEO are more likely to be cited as sources in these overviews.
Answer Engine
A search tool that provides direct answers to questions rather than a list of links. ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, and Gemini are all answer engines. They pull information from various sources and synthesize responses, fundamentally changing how people find information online.
Authority Signals
Indicators that tell AI engines your content is trustworthy and credible. These include author bylines, publication dates, cited sources, backlinks from reputable sites, and consistent NAP (Name, Address, Phone) information. The more authority signals you have, the more likely AI is to cite you.
BreadcrumbList Schema
A type of structured data that describes the navigational path to a page on your website (e.g., Home > Blog > AEO Guide). Breadcrumb schema helps both search engines and AI understand your site hierarchy, making it easier to contextualize your content within your overall site structure.
ChatGPT Search
OpenAI's feature that allows ChatGPT to search the web in real-time and cite sources in its responses. When your site is AEO-optimized, ChatGPT is more likely to find and reference your content when users ask relevant questions. This represents a massive new traffic channel for businesses.
Citation
When an AI engine references your website as a source in its response to a user query. Citations are the AEO equivalent of a Google search ranking — they drive traffic and build authority. Getting cited by ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Gemini means your content was deemed authoritative enough to answer someone's question.
Citation Potential
A scoring category in AEO audits that measures how likely AI engines are to reference your content. Factors include clear Q&A formatting, definitive statements, unique data or perspectives, and content that directly answers common questions in your industry.
ClaudeBot
Anthropic's web crawler that scans websites for content that may be used by Claude, Anthropic's AI assistant. You can control ClaudeBot's access through your robots.txt file. Allowing ClaudeBot access increases your chances of being cited by Claude in its responses.
Content Structure
How your content is organized using headings (H1-H6), paragraphs, lists, and other HTML elements. Well-structured content with clear hierarchical headings helps AI parse and understand your information. AI engines prefer content that's scannable, logically organized, and uses descriptive headings.
E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness)
Google's quality framework that has become equally important for AI engine optimization. AI models evaluate content credibility using similar signals: Does the author have real experience? Is the content expert-level? Is the source authoritative? Can the information be trusted? Strong E-E-A-T signals increase your chances of being cited by AI.
Entity
A clearly defined person, organization, place, or thing that AI engines can identify and understand. When your business exists as a well-defined entity (with consistent name, description, and structured data across the web), AI engines can reference you with confidence. Entity clarity is a core AEO factor.
FAQ Schema
Structured data markup (FAQPage type) that identifies questions and answers on your page. FAQ schema is one of the most impactful AEO optimizations because AI engines love clear Q&A pairs — they can directly use your answers when responding to user queries. Adding FAQ schema can significantly boost your citation potential.
Featured Snippet
A highlighted answer box at the top of Google search results, pulled directly from a web page. Featured snippets are a bridge between traditional SEO and AEO — the same content qualities that win featured snippets (clear answers, structured formatting) also help you get cited by AI engines.
GPTBot
OpenAI's web crawler that scans public websites. Content indexed by GPTBot may be used by ChatGPT and other OpenAI products for real-time search and responses. You can allow or block GPTBot in your robots.txt file. Allowing access is generally recommended for AEO visibility.
Hallucination
When an AI engine generates information that sounds plausible but is factually incorrect. One goal of AEO is to make your real, accurate information so easy for AI to find and understand that it gets cited instead of hallucinated alternatives. Well-structured, authoritative content reduces the risk of AI making up facts about your business.
JSON-LD (JavaScript Object Notation for Linked Data)
The preferred format for adding structured data to web pages. JSON-LD is a script block you add to your HTML that describes your content in a machine-readable way. It's what Google recommends, and it's how AI engines quickly understand what your page is about — your business type, products, FAQs, and more.
Knowledge Graph
A structured database of entities and their relationships, used by search engines and AI to understand the world. Google's Knowledge Graph powers those info boxes in search results. Getting your business into knowledge graphs (through consistent schema markup and entity signals) helps AI engines confidently reference you.
LLM (Large Language Model)
The AI technology behind tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini. LLMs are trained on vast amounts of text data and generate human-like responses to questions. When your content is well-optimized for AEO, LLMs are more likely to include your information in their responses.
Meta Description
A short summary of a web page's content, defined in the HTML head. While meta descriptions have always mattered for SEO click-through rates, they also influence how AI engines preview and contextualize your content. Write meta descriptions that clearly state what the page covers and who it's for.
NAP Consistency
Ensuring your business Name, Address, and Phone number are identical everywhere they appear online. NAP consistency is a core local SEO and AEO signal. When AI engines find consistent NAP data across your site, directories, and social profiles, they have higher confidence in recommending your business.
Organization Schema
Structured data that defines your business entity — name, logo, description, contact info, social profiles, and founding date. Organization schema is arguably the most important schema type for AEO because it establishes your business as a known, verifiable entity that AI can confidently reference.
Perplexity AI
An AI-powered search engine that provides direct answers with cited sources. Perplexity is one of the fastest-growing answer engines and actively crawls the web for fresh content. Being cited by Perplexity drives direct referral traffic to your site. It uses PerplexityBot as its web crawler.
PerplexityBot
Perplexity AI's web crawler that indexes content for use in Perplexity's search results. Like GPTBot and ClaudeBot, you can control PerplexityBot's access via robots.txt. Allowing access increases your visibility in Perplexity's AI-generated answers.
RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation)
A technique where AI engines search the web for relevant information before generating a response, rather than relying solely on training data. RAG is how ChatGPT Search, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews work. If your content is well-structured and accessible, RAG systems are more likely to retrieve and cite it.
robots.txt
A text file at the root of your website that tells crawlers which pages they can and cannot access. For AEO, your robots.txt should explicitly allow AI crawlers like GPTBot, ClaudeBot, and PerplexityBot. Blocking these bots means AI engines simply cannot find your content.
Schema Markup
Code added to your website that helps search engines and AI understand your content in a structured way. Schema tells AI exactly what your page is about — whether it's a product, FAQ, article, organization, or recipe. It's like giving AI a cheat sheet for your content instead of making it figure things out on its own.
Structured Data
Any data organized in a predefined format that machines can easily read. In the context of AEO, structured data usually refers to schema markup (JSON-LD, Microdata, or RDFa) added to web pages. Structured data is one of the strongest signals you can give AI engines about your content's meaning and context.
SoftwareApplication Schema
A type of structured data used to describe software products and tools. It includes fields for application category, operating system, pricing, and features. For SaaS and tool-based businesses, SoftwareApplication schema helps AI engines understand and recommend your product accurately.
Technical Readiness
A scoring category in AEO audits that evaluates the technical factors affecting AI accessibility. This includes page load speed, mobile responsiveness, SSL certificates, clean URL structures, and proper HTTP status codes. Even the best content won't get cited if AI crawlers can't technically access it.
Token
The basic unit of text that AI models process — roughly 3/4 of a word. AI models have token limits for both input and output, which means overly long, rambling content is less likely to be fully processed. Concise, information-dense content is more token-efficient and more likely to be cited by AI.
WebSite Schema
Structured data that identifies your site as a website and links it to its publisher organization. WebSite schema helps AI engines understand the relationship between your domain and your business entity. It's a simple but important piece of the AEO puzzle that many sites overlook.
Zero-Click Search
A search where the user gets their answer directly on the search results page without clicking through to a website. AI Overviews and answer engines are accelerating zero-click search. AEO helps you get cited in these zero-click answers, maintaining visibility and brand awareness even when users don't visit your site directly.
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