GEO Glossary

Optimization of websites to be understood, retrieved, and cited by generative AI systems.

Process where AI systems fetch external web content to answer queries.

Decision process where AI chooses which sources to reference.

Combining multiple sources into one generated answer.

Date until which an AI model was trained.

AI accessing websites in real time.

Likelihood that AI systems can find and understand a website.

AI comprehension of meaning rather than keywords.

Splitting documents into smaller retrievable sections.

Amount of text AI can consider at once.

How easily AI can extract answers from a page.

How well page content matches user questions.

AI-generated summaries replacing traditional search snippets.

AI combining training knowledge with retrieved documents.

Semantic similarity search using embeddings.

Mathematical representation of text meaning.

AI capable of multi-step decision making.

Software answering queries conversationally.

AI calling external APIs or services.

Anchoring answers in external verified sources.

AI generating incorrect information confidently.

Linking answers to original content.

AI deciding which facts appear first.

Automated system fetching web pages.

Rules defining crawler access.

Crawler operated by AI companies.

Maximum pages crawled within limits.

Loading JavaScript to see final page content.

Content available without JS execution.

HTML generated on server.

Content generated via browser JavaScript.

Server response indicating success or failure.

Preferred version of a page.

Multiple redirects before final content.

Structured list of website pages.

Tags describing meaning rather than layout.

Structural elements: <main>, <nav>, <header>, <footer>

Logical H1, H2, H3 order for content structure.

Self-contained content block.

Thematic grouping of content.

Image with explanatory context.

Structure readable by assistive technologies.

Image description metadata.

Clickable text describing links.

Structured tabular data.

Machine-readable timestamps.

Overuse of <div> tags without semantics.

Vocabulary for structured web data.

Preferred schema implementation format.

Structured Q&A markup.

Product metadata.

Company identity markup.

Location-based business data.

Review summary score.

Social sharing metadata.

Page summary metadata.

Main search and AI topic signal.

Inline structured markup.

Server freshness indicator.

Visible update date.

Update notification feed.

How often pages update.

Frequently changing information.

Live data access.

Loss of relevance over time.

Tracking content updates.

Indicator of recent change.

Machine-accessible data interface.

API documentation standard.

Query-based API protocol.

Standard allowing AI agents to access tools and data.

Service exposing callable AI tools.

AI finding available tools automatically.

Ability for AI to perform actions.

Tool integration configuration.

Machine-readable data export.

AI performing real-world actions.

Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness.

Identified human contributor.

Recognizable organization identity.

Entity relationship database.

References outside your site.

Frequency of being cited.

Customer feedback indicators.

Contact and company information.

Clear sourcing practices.

Frequency of AI mentions.

Appearance in generated answers.

Ease of content parsing.

Structural quality measurement.

Update reliability metric.

Accessibility evaluation.

Reliance on rendering.

Ease of document segmentation.

Importance of evaluation factors.

Single evaluation execution.

AI completing tasks instead of returning links.

Multi-turn information gathering.

AI replacing traditional search engines.

Ease of automated interpretation.

AI assisting navigation decisions.

Combining browsing and APIs.