Core AEO, GEO, and AI search terms
Answer engine optimization (AEO)
The practice of improving content, technical accessibility, entities, evidence, and external authority so an answer system can retrieve, understand, cite, or recommend a brand.
Generative engine optimization (GEO)
Optimization for visibility inside generated responses. GEO commonly overlaps with AEO, but the term puts more emphasis on inclusion and citation within generative search outputs.
AI SEO
An umbrella term for search optimization in a market shaped by AI-generated results, conversational discovery, and AI-assisted execution. It still depends on core SEO fundamentals.
Answer engine
A system that returns a synthesized answer instead of only a ranked list of links. Examples include Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT Search, Perplexity, Gemini, and Copilot.
AI Overview
A Google Search feature that summarizes a query with generative AI and links to supporting web pages when Google determines the feature adds value to the search result.
AI citation
A visible source reference attached to an AI-generated claim or answer. A citation can point to an owned page or a third-party page that mentions the brand.
Brand mention
An appearance of a brand name in an answer, with or without a clickable source. Mentions and citations should be measured separately because they represent different kinds of visibility.
Grounding
Connecting a generated response to retrieved evidence or authoritative data. Grounding can improve freshness and factual support, though the exact implementation varies by product.
Retrieval
The step where a system finds candidate documents, passages, entities, or data that may help answer a question. A page cannot be selected if it is not discoverable or retrievable.
Retrieval-augmented generation (RAG)
A method that retrieves external information and supplies it to a generative model before or during response creation. Search-backed answers are a common user-facing example.
Entity
A distinct person, organization, product, place, or concept that a system can identify and connect to attributes and relationships. RadiusRank is an organization entity; a service page describes an offering connected to it.
Entity resolution
The process of deciding whether different names, domains, profiles, and records refer to the same real-world entity. Consistent names and sameAs links can reduce ambiguity.
Prompt coverage
The portion of a defined buyer-question set tested during a measurement period. Coverage should be reported so visibility scores cannot hide missing or selectively chosen prompts.
Query fan-out
A technique documented by Google where an AI search feature issues multiple related searches across subtopics and data sources to assemble a response for a complex question.
Passage ranking
Google systems that identify individual sections of a page to better understand their relevance. Descriptive headings and complete answer passages help sections make sense independently.
Structured data
Machine-readable markup, commonly JSON-LD using Schema.org vocabulary, that describes visible page content and relationships. It improves clarity but does not guarantee rankings or AI citations.
llms.txt
A proposed plain-text index that summarizes important site resources for AI agents. It is optional and is not a requirement for Google AI Overviews or AI Mode.
A note on measurement language
AI answers vary by engine, model, date, location, account context, and sometimes from one run to the next. A useful visibility study freezes as many variables as possible, stores the raw answers, resolves brand names consistently, and reports sample size. "Share of voice" without that context is not reproducible.
RadiusRank separates a brand mention from a source citation. It also separates a citation to the brand's own domain from a citation to a third-party page that discusses the brand. Those distinctions tell the team whether the next action belongs on the website or in authority and outreach work.
For the applied framework, read What is AEO? or review RadiusRank's managed AEO service.