Key terms and definitions for understanding AI-powered search, generative engine optimization, and brand visibility across AI platforms.
The practice of structuring content so AI search engines cite it in responses.
Optimizing brand content to appear in AI-generated answers across platforms.
Optimizing content specifically for large language models like GPT and Claude.
A category label (Strong, Moderate, Emerging, Weak, or Not visible) measuring how prominently a brand appears in AI responses. Derived from a composite measure of mentions, prominence, citations, and sentiment across major AI models — but always surfaced as a category, never a raw number.
A machine-readable file that helps AI crawlers understand your site content.
The percentage of AI-generated responses that mention your brand vs competitors.
When an AI model references or links to your content as a source in its response.
OpenAI's web crawler that indexes content for ChatGPT's browsing and training.
Perplexity AI's web crawler that fetches live content to answer user queries.
A search where the user gets the answer directly without clicking through to a website.