Answer Engine Optimisation (AEO)
The practice of structuring content, data, and products so AI answer engines can understand and cite them as a source. AEO earns citations inside AI answers, where SEO earns rankings in a list of links.
Related: Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) · Answer engine · Citation
Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO)
The sibling term for AEO, emphasising visibility inside generative AI results. In practice the two describe the same discipline: becoming the source a generative model reaches for.
Related: Answer Engine Optimisation (AEO) · Answer engine
Answer engine
An AI system that responds to a query with a synthesised answer rather than a list of links — for example ChatGPT Search, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, Gemini, or Copilot. It usually cites the sources it used.
Related: Answer Engine Optimisation (AEO) · Retrieval · Citation
Retrieval
The step where an AI system searches a large index and pulls back the passages most relevant to a query before writing an answer. Content that retrieves well is relevant, self-contained, and clearly structured.
Citation
A reference an AI answer engine attaches to a claim, pointing to the source it relied on. Being cited — not just crawled — is the goal of AEO.
Related: Answer Engine Optimisation (AEO) · Answer engine
Chunk
A small, self-contained slice of a page that an AI system embeds and retrieves independently. Because engines work at the chunk level, each passage should make sense on its own.
Embedding
A numeric representation of a piece of text that lets an AI system measure how similar it is to a query. Retrieval works by comparing the query embedding to content embeddings.
llms.txt
A plain-text file at a site's root that summarises what the site is about and links to key pages, giving AI systems a quick, machine-readable overview. A companion to robots.txt and sitemap.xml.
Related: Answer Engine Optimisation (AEO) · Grounding
Grounding
Tying an AI's answer to retrieved source material rather than its own training memory. Grounded answers are more accurate and come with citations.
Entity
A distinct thing an AI system recognises and tracks — a brand, person, product, or concept. Strong, consistent entity signals (schema, sameAs, corroboration) help engines identify and trust you.
Related: Answer Engine Optimisation (AEO) · Citation
See also: The AEO Guide · AEO vs SEO
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