Glossary

The language of AI visibility.

Plain-English definitions of the terms used in Generative Engine Optimisation and Answer Engine Optimisation. Each definition is written to stand alone, because that is how answer engines - and busy people - read.

Generative Engine Optimisation GEO: Generative Engine Optimisation is the practice of improving how often a business is named, and how it is presented, inside AI-generated answers - the responses produced by engines such as ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity and Copilot. Where SEO competed for position on a results page, GEO competes for a place inside the answer itself. Full guide: What is GEO?
Answer Engine Optimisation AEO: Answer Engine Optimisation is the discipline of optimising content and business identity for answer-focused search, so that when a question is asked, the business is the source the engine quotes. The term overlaps heavily with GEO and the two are often used interchangeably; in practice the work is substantially the same and Answari treats them as one discipline.
Citation share: Citation share is the percentage of runs, across a fixed set of buyer questions and a fixed set of AI engines, in which a brand is named in the answer. It is the main metric of AI visibility because it measures presence in the answer a customer actually sees, rather than proxies such as rankings or traffic. Measured properly it also captures position, accuracy and sentiment - the measurement guide sets out the full protocol.
Answer engine: An answer engine is an AI system that responds to a question with a synthesised answer rather than a list of links. The main answer engines are ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude and Copilot. Each retrieves sources, weighs which it can trust, and names a small number of businesses or pages in its response - and each weighs signals slightly differently, which is why visibility is measured per engine. Full guide: how answer engines choose sources.
Answer capsule: An answer capsule is a direct, self-contained answer of roughly 40-60 words placed at the very top of a page, written so that an answer engine can lift it accurately and whole. It states plainly what the page is about before any elaboration. Every page on this site opens with one - the practice demonstrates itself.
Entity: An entity is a person, business, product, service or concept that search and AI systems can confidently recognise as one distinct thing, with consistent facts attached to it. Engines recommend entities, not web pages: a business that exists as a single well-attested entity is a safe recommendation; one that exists as scattered, inconsistent fragments is not.
Entity depth: Entity depth is how much consistent, corroborated information the engines hold about an entity - the difference between being merely recognised and being understood richly enough to recommend. Depth is built by structured data, consistent profiles, independent citations and named people with credentials, accumulated over time. Shallow entities get mentioned occasionally; deep entities get recommended.
Structured data JSON-LD: Structured data is machine-readable labelling that tells engines exactly what a page, business, person or service is, removing the guesswork from interpretation. It is usually implemented in JSON-LD format using the schema.org vocabulary, in a script block invisible to human visitors. It is the foundation of machine-readability - and this page’s own definitions are marked up with it.
Organisation & Person schema: Organisation and Person schema are the structured-data types that declare who a business and its people are: name, location, contact details, credentials, and the relationships between them. Together they form the core of an entity’s machine-readable identity - the version of the business an engine can verify rather than infer.
FAQPage schema: FAQPage schema is structured data that marks up question-and-answer content so engines can read each pair cleanly and quote it accurately. Clean question-and-answer pairs are among the easiest content for an answer engine to lift, which makes a well-built FAQ one of the highest-leverage assets in AEO - provided the questions are phrased the way buyers actually ask.
sameAs: sameAs is a structured-data property that links an entity to its official profiles and references elsewhere on the web - a LinkedIn page, a Companies House record, established directories. It lets engines confirm that the business described on the website is the same one attested by independent sources, strengthening identity and trust.
NAP consistency: NAP consistency means keeping a business’s Name, Address and Phone number identical across every listing, profile and citation on the web. Engines cross-check these facts between sources; every mismatch erodes confidence in the entity, and enough mismatches make a business too uncertain to recommend. Tedious to fix, and disproportionately valuable.
Google Business Profile GBP: Google Business Profile is Google’s business listing system, feeding Maps, local results and the knowledge panel. For local businesses it is one of the most heavily weighted, verifiable sources of business facts available to AI answers - a complete, accurate, actively maintained profile is foundational to local AI visibility.
AI crawlers GPTBot · ClaudeBot · PerplexityBot: AI crawlers are the automated agents AI companies use to read the web - GPTBot (OpenAI), ClaudeBot (Anthropic), PerplexityBot, Google-Extended and others. If they are blocked, whether deliberately or by a firewall default nobody chose, the business cannot be cited from its own site. Crawler access is checked in phase two of the Answari methodology because a block here silently defeats everything else.
Branded vs non-branded citations: A branded citation occurs when the question already contains the business’s name (“is Smith Dental good?”); a non-branded citation occurs in an open question (“best dentist in Plymouth”). The split matters because non-branded citation share measures genuine discovery - being found by people who did not know you existed - which is where growth comes from.
E-E-A-T: E-E-A-T stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness - the qualities engines look for in content and the people behind it. It is weighted most heavily in health, legal and financial topics, where engines are visibly conservative. In practice it means named authors, real credentials, honest claims and independent corroboration.
AI Overviews: AI Overviews are Google’s AI-generated summaries shown above the traditional results, answering the query directly and citing a small number of sources. They occupy the most valuable screen space in search, and inclusion is won on answer-engine terms - clarity, trust and quotability - not simply inherited from organic rankings.

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Last updated: July 2026