AEO glossary

AEO Answer Engine Optimization

Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) is the work of designing content and data so that AI answer engines — ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews and others — cite a brand's information as evidence when answering a question.

The performance metric is not search ranking but whether you were cited.

GEO Generative Engine Optimization

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is optimization work that raises the odds of a brand and its content being discovered, understood and cited in answers produced by generative AI. The term was proposed in an academic paper in 2023.

In practice it overlaps with AEO almost entirely.

AI search AI Search

AI search is a mode of search in which generative AI retrieves and synthesises web documents into an answer. What differs from conventional search is that users frequently read only the answer and leave without clicking a link.

"AI top exposure" Korean colloquialism

"AI 상위노출" (literally "AI top exposure") is a Korean colloquialism for the work of getting an answer engine — ChatGPT, Gemini, Naver AI search — to mention or cite your brand when it composes an answer.

The phrase borrows from search-industry usage, but AI answers have no list and no ranking, so there is no position to hold. What is measured is whether you were cited, and how often. The precise terms are AEO and GEO.

Structured data Structured Data

Structured data is facts such as company name, services and FAQs written into a page in a machine-readable format, usually JSON-LD. It is a supporting means of conveying facts, not a device that guarantees visibility.

LLMO Large Language Model Optimization

LLMO refers to optimization aimed at getting large language models to recognise a brand and its content and use them in answers. It is another name for what is effectively the same activity as AEO and GEO.

Answer engine Answer Engine

An answer engine is a system that generates and presents an answer to a question directly, instead of a list of search results. ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews and Naver AI Search are examples.

AI citation AI Citation

An AI citation is an AI-generated answer marking a specific web page or domain as its source. It is a different concept from a mention, where only the brand name appears.

A citation signals trust in the document; a mention signals brand awareness.

Brand mention Brand Mention

A brand mention is the company or brand name appearing in the body of an AI answer. It counts as a mention even when no source link is shown alongside it.

Recommendation

A recommendation is the AI putting a brand forward as a candidate when a user asks for a vendor, service or product to be recommended. It is a signal closer to conversion than a plain mention.

AI share of voice AI Share of Voice

AI share of voice is the proportion of all competitor mentions, across the same question set, that a particular brand holds. Your share can fall while your own mention rate stays flat, if competitors rise.

Citation rate Citation Rate

Citation rate is the proportion of measured questions in which the brand, or a web page belonging to it, was cited as a source in the AI answer. A citation rate published without its denominator (questions × engines) cannot be verified.

Retrieval

Retrieval is the stage where AI searches for and collects relevant documents before generating an answer. A document that does not make the candidate pool at this stage cannot be cited no matter how well it is written.

Grounding Grounding / RAG

Grounding is the technique of generating an answer based on actual documents fetched by search, also known as retrieval-augmented generation (RAG). It improves accuracy and currency, and makes source citation possible.

Entity

An entity is a single subject — a company, person or product — as recognised by search engines and AI. When the same company is written with different names and details across channels, it scatters into separate entities and the brand signal weakens.

E-E-A-T Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness

E-E-A-T is Google's perspective on content quality: experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness. It is not a defined score but a bundle of criteria for judging whether a document and a brand are trustworthy.

Zero-click search Zero-click Search

A zero-click search is one where the user reads only the search screen or the AI answer and leaves without clicking a result link. The larger this share grows, the more 'are you inside the answer' matters over 'what position are you'.

Conversational query Conversational Query

A conversational query is a question asked as a sentence rather than as keywords — for example, "which marketing agency in Gwangju is any good?" A keyword needs a landing page; a question needs an answer.

Prompt

A prompt is the question or instruction a user enters into an AI. Even for the same intent, a different paraphrase can change the answer and the brands that appear, so AEO measurement has to repeat across several phrasings.

Source diversity Source Diversity

Source diversity is a measure of how many distinct external domains confirm the information supporting a brand. A fact confirmed by several independent sources may be a stronger signal than a claim existing only on your own site (this is a hypothetical metric; the size of the effect is still to be verified).