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The words we use, defined plainly
Fourteen terms, one sentence or two each, the way we use them on this site and in your reports.
- Answer engine optimization (AEO)
- The work of getting a business cited and recommended when people ask AI answer engines. Built on SEO and measured by share of answer.
- Answer engine
- A system that answers a question directly rather than listing links: Google AI Overviews and AI Mode, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot.
- Share of answer
- For a fixed set of questions, how often a business is named, cited or recommended, by engine, over time. The core AEO metric.
- Citation
- A source an answer engine names or links as the basis for part of its answer.
- AI Overview citation
- A keyword where a domain is cited inside Google’s AI Overview, as counted in Semrush.
- Fan-out
- The way an engine turns one question into several related searches before it answers. The reason AEO plans around phrases rather than keywords.
- Generative engine optimization (GEO)
- The research term for the same work, from the 2023 paper that named it. AEO.ca uses AEO as the umbrella.
- LLMO, AIO, AI visibility
- Other names for the same work, used by practitioners and tool vendors.
- Answer Profile
- AEO.ca’s canonical statement of what a business does, for whom and where, carried everywhere an engine reads. The first deliverable in every engagement.
- Entity
- A thing an engine recognizes as a distinct business, person or place, with facts attached. Being an unambiguous entity is a precondition for being recommended.
- Structured data
- Machine-readable markup on a page (Organization, Service, FAQ, Article) that states what the visible text already says.
- llms.txt
- A proposed file that points AI crawlers to a site’s most relevant content. Hygiene for engines other than Google, not a Google ranking lever.
- Month one
- AEO.ca’s setup month on every plan: research, personas, phrase analysis, technical recommendations, a baseline and a twelve-month plan. Not an audit.
- Two instruments
- AEO.ca’s measurement rule: our own tool as the instrument of record, Semrush as the second opinion, divergence investigated.