AI search
- Generative engine optimisation (GEO)
Making your business and content easy for AI assistants such as ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google's AI features to find, understand and cite. The term comes from a research paper by Aggarwal and colleagues, published at the KDD conference in 2024.
- Answer engine optimisation (AEO)
Writing and structuring content so that a search engine or AI assistant can lift a direct answer from it: a clear question, the answer in the first sentence and facts that make sense on their own. In practice AEO and GEO overlap almost completely.
- AI Overview
An AI-written summary that Google shows at the top of some search results, with links to the pages it draws on.
- AI Mode
A conversational search mode in Google where people ask questions in their own words, follow up with more questions and get an AI answer with links to sources.
- Citation
A link or named source that an AI answer gives for its information. A citation links to your page; a mention names your business, with or without a link.
- Entity
A distinct thing that a search system can identify and attach facts to, such as a company, a person, a place or a product. A business becomes a clear entity when its name, address and services match everywhere it appears.
- Knowledge Graph
Google's database of entities and the facts that connect them, which it uses to answer questions about people, places and businesses directly.
- Query fan-out
A technique in which an AI search feature splits one question into several related searches across subtopics and combines what it finds into one answer. Google uses it in AI Overviews and AI Mode.
- llms.txt
A proposed text file at the root of a website that summarises the site for language models. Google says it neither helps nor harms a site's visibility in Google Search.
- AI crawler
A bot that reads websites for an AI service, such as OAI-SearchBot for ChatGPT search or PerplexityBot for Perplexity. OpenAI says sites that block OAI-SearchBot are not shown in ChatGPT search answers.
Search engines
- Crawl
A search engine's bot visiting a page to read its content and follow its links.
- Index
A search engine's store of the pages it has crawled and may show in results. A page that isn't indexed can't appear in search at all.
- Canonical URL
The address you tell search engines is the main version of a page, when the same content can be reached at several addresses.
- Structured data
Code on a page that describes its content in a standard format machines read directly, such as your business name, address, opening hours or prices. Google says it isn't required for its AI search but recommends keeping it as part of good search practice.
- Schema.org
The shared vocabulary of types and properties used for structured data, maintained as an open project and used by the major search engines.
- LocalBusiness
The schema.org type for a physical business or branch, carrying its name, address, phone number, opening hours and area served. It has more specific types for trades, such as HomeAndConstructionBusiness and AutomotiveBusiness.
- FAQPage
The schema.org type for a page of questions and answers. Google stopped showing FAQ rich results in its search results from 7 May 2026, but the markup still labels questions and answers clearly for machines.
- E-E-A-T
Experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness: the qualities Google describes as signs of reliable content, with trust the most important. Google says E-E-A-T itself isn't a specific ranking factor.
- Search Console
Google's free tool that shows how your site performs in Google Search: which searches show your pages, how often people click and which pages have problems. Clicks from Google's AI features are included in its Performance report.
- Google Business Profile
Your free business listing on Google Search and Maps, with your name, address, hours, photos, services and reviews. Google ranks local results mainly on relevance, distance and prominence.
- NAP
Name, address and phone number. Keeping them identical on your website, your Google Business Profile and every directory helps search engines and AI assistants treat each mention as the same business.
- Map pack
The block of map results, usually three businesses, that Google shows for local searches such as "electrician near me". It is also called the local pack or local 3-pack.
Website speed
- PageSpeed Insights
Google's free tool that tests a page and gives it a performance score from 0 to 100 for mobile and desktop. The score comes from Lighthouse, Google's lab testing tool: 90–100 is good, 50–89 needs improvement and 0–49 is poor.
- Core Web Vitals
Three measurements of real user experience that Google uses in its ranking systems: LCP for loading, INP for responsiveness and CLS for visual stability. A page passes when at least 75% of visits are good on all three.
- Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)
The time until the largest image or block of text in view has appeared. Good is 2.5 seconds or less.
- Interaction to Next Paint (INP)
How quickly a page responds on screen after a tap, click or key press, measured from real visits. Good is 200 milliseconds or less, and INP replaced First Input Delay as a Core Web Vital in March 2024.
- Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)
A score for how much the content moves unexpectedly while the page loads. Good is 0.1 or less.
- Total Blocking Time (TBT)
The total time during loading when the page is too busy running scripts to respond to input. Lab tests use it in place of INP, and on mobile 200 milliseconds or less is rated fast.
- First Contentful Paint (FCP)
The time until the first text or image appears on screen.
- Speed Index
How quickly the visible part of a page fills in while it loads.
- CrUX
The Chrome User Experience Report: Google's dataset of how real Chrome users experience popular pages and sites, covering the previous 28 days. A page needs enough visitors to appear in it.
- Lab data
Results from a simulated visit on a set device and connection, such as the PageSpeed Insights score. It can be repeated on any page at any time.
- Field data
Results from real visits, collected from real users' browsers. It shows what visitors actually experienced, but only exists for pages with enough traffic.
Conversion
- Conversion rate
The share of visitors who take the action you want, such as sending a quote request or booking a time. 30 requests from 1,000 visits is a conversion rate of 3%.
- Landing page
A page built for one offer and one action, usually for visitors who arrive from an ad, an email or a campaign link.
- Message match
Keeping the promise of an ad and the opening of its landing page the same, so the visitor knows at once they are in the right place.
- Unique mechanism
What your product or service does differently that explains why it works when other options didn't. On a landing page it answers the reader's question: why would this work for me?
- Call to action (CTA)
The button or link that asks the visitor to take the next step, such as "Get a price" or "Book a time". A good call to action says exactly what happens next.
- Lead magnet
Something useful offered in exchange for contact details, such as a price estimate, a checklist or a website check.
- Multi-step form
A form split into short steps with a few questions each, so visitors find it easy to start and the business still gets every detail it needs. A smart form is a multi-step form that changes the next question based on earlier answers.
Sources
- Aggarwal et al., "GEO: Generative Engine Optimization", KDD 2024 (arXiv) arxiv.org/abs/2311.09735
- Google Search Central, "AI features and your website", December 2025 developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/ai-features
- Google Search Central, "Optimizing for generative AI search", July 2026 developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/ai-optimization-guide
- OpenAI, "Overview of OpenAI crawlers", accessed October 2026 developers.openai.com/api/docs/bots
- Schema.org, "LocalBusiness", accessed October 2026 schema.org/LocalBusiness
- Google Search Central, "Deprecating the FAQ rich result feature" (documentation update), May 2026 developers.google.com/search/updates
- Google Search Central, "Creating helpful, reliable, people-first content", October 2026 developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/creating-helpful-content
- Google Business Profile Help, "Tips to improve your local ranking on Google", accessed October 2026 support.google.com/business/answer/7091
- Chrome for Developers, "Lighthouse performance scoring", accessed October 2026 developer.chrome.com/docs/lighthouse/performance/performance-scoring
- web.dev, "Web Vitals", October 2024 web.dev/articles/vitals
- Google Search Central, "Understanding page experience in Google Search results", September 2026 developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/page-experience
- web.dev, "Interaction to Next Paint is officially a Core Web Vital", March 2024 web.dev/blog/inp-cwv-launch
- Chrome for Developers, "Total Blocking Time", accessed October 2026 developer.chrome.com/docs/lighthouse/performance/lighthouse-total-blocking-time
- Google for Developers, "About PageSpeed Insights", accessed October 2026 developers.google.com/speed/docs/insights/v5/about