Reference
AI visibility & GEO glossary
Definitions of the terms used across GeoSuite reports and across this corner of the SEO/GEO industry. Each definition is meant to be quotable in one sentence so that when an AI engine cites it, the meaning travels intact.
- AI visibility
- How often and how favourably a brand is mentioned in answers from generative AI engines (ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, etc.). The AI equivalent of a search ranking. Read the guide →
- AI Overviews (AIO)
- Google's generative-answer feature that appears above the classic search results for many queries. AI Overviews summarise sources from across the web and increasingly determine whether a user clicks through at all. Read the guide →
- Attribute alignment
- How closely the attributes a brand or product publishes match the attributes AI engines cite when answering buyer questions. Used inside GeoSuite's e-commerce audit.
- Brand recall
- Share of relevant generative-AI responses that mention the audited brand by name. The most fundamental AI visibility metric. Read the guide →
- Buyer intent question
- A question phrased the way a real buyer would ask it (e.g. 'best CRM for a small agency', not 'CRM software'). GeoSuite generates these per industry to drive realistic audits.
- Citation sentiment
- Whether an AI engine talks about a brand positively, neutrally or negatively, and on which attributes.
- Competitor map
- The ranked set of brands an AI engine names alongside or instead of the audited brand on a given set of queries. Output of every GeoSuite audit.
- GEO: Generative Engine Optimization
- The practice of optimising a brand's web presence so that generative AI engines cite, mention or recommend it when answering questions. The AI counterpart of SEO. Read the guide →
- Grounding
- When an AI engine retrieves live web pages while answering a query, instead of relying only on training data. Perplexity is always grounded; ChatGPT and Gemini ground selectively. Read the guide →
- Lane
- A class of buyer-intent questions GeoSuite audits separately because the optimisation playbook differs (comparison, recommendation, alternative, branded, feature).
- PMF score
- Per-product score in a GeoSuite e-commerce audit, weighting attribute alignment, query relevance, AI recommendation fit and market demand signal. Predicts which SKU an AI is most likely to recommend.
- Recommendation fit
- How strongly an AI engine recommends a specific product or brand when given a 'which X for Y use case' question.
- Share of voice (SoV)
- Proportion of AI mentions that go to the audited brand vs. its competitors on a given set of queries. Read the guide →
- SoV by lane
- Share of voice broken down per question lane: useful when a brand is strong on branded recall but weak on comparison or recommendation lanes.
- Source list
- The set of websites an AI engine cites when grounding its answers about a brand or its category. GeoSuite reports the source list per audit. Read the guide →
- Structured data
- Schema.org JSON-LD markup that lets engines (search and AI) extract the brand entity, products, articles and FAQ pairs from a page without parsing the HTML. Read the guide →
- AEO: Answer Engine Optimization
- The work of getting an engine to use a piece of content as the direct answer to a question: featured snippets, voice assistants, AI engines. In customs the acronym also names the Authorized Economic Operator status. Read the guide →
- AI Mode
- The Google Search mode that answers with text written by AI and linked sources, instead of the results list, and allows follow-up questions. Read the guide →
- LLMO: Large Language Model Optimization
- Another name for GEO, from the model's point of view: the work of getting named and cited in the answers of LLMs. Read the guide →
- llms.txt
- A Markdown file at the site root that introduces the site to language models with a summary and links to the main pages. It neither blocks nor allows bots. Read the guide →
- Answer engine
- An engine that answers the question directly instead of listing pages: Google's featured snippet, voice assistants, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Copilot. Read the guide →
- Query fan-out
- The technique by which an AI engine splits a question into several parallel searches and combines the results into a single answer. Read the guide →
- SEO: Search Engine Optimization
- The work of making a site rank higher in the organic results of search engines. It is the base AEO and GEO build on. Read the guide →