Glossary for answer engine optimization.

AEO stands for Answer Engine Optimization: the practice of making pages discoverable, retrievable, and citable by AI answer systems.

An AI answer surface is the interface where an answer engine shows generated text, citations, source panels, follow-up prompts, or related links.

An AI crawler is a user agent used by an AI platform to fetch pages for search, retrieval, training, or user-triggered browsing.

AI Mode is a Google Search AI experience that can use query fan-out and generated answers. Site eligibility still depends on ordinary Search access and controls documented by Google.

AI Overviews are Google Search AI features that generate summary answers and may include supporting links from eligible indexed pages.

Answer composition is the stage where a model turns retrieved context into a generated response. A page can be retrieved but still not appear in the final answer.

An answer engine is a search or assistant product that returns synthesized answers instead of, or alongside, a traditional list of links.

Answer Engine Optimization is the discipline of making source pages easy for answer systems to access, understand, retrieve, and cite.

AEO vs SEO is the comparison between optimizing pages for traditional search visibility and optimizing pages as citable source material for answer engines.

A canonical URL is the preferred version of a page that search systems should treat as the main source when duplicates or variants exist.

A canonical source page is the preferred URL a site wants answer engines to use for a specific definition, comparison, method, or claim.

Citation eligibility is the set of conditions that make a page available to be shown as a source, including crawl access, indexability, snippet eligibility, and source relevance.

A citation surface is the place where an answer engine exposes source credit, such as inline links, source cards, related links, or a side panel.

ChatGPT search is OpenAI search functionality that can use web results and expose sources through inline citations or source panels.

ChatGPT-User is an OpenAI user agent associated with user-triggered actions, distinct from search inclusion and training crawlers.

Chunking is the process of splitting content into smaller units so retrieval systems can search and rank passages instead of whole documents.

A citation is visible source credit attached to an answer, link, source card, or supporting reference in an answer engine.

Citation tracking records whether answer engines mention a brand, cite the exact URL, cite the wrong URL, or cite a competing source.

Claude-SearchBot is an Anthropic-related crawler name associated with search retrieval surfaces.

ClaudeBot is an Anthropic crawler. Teams should confirm whether blocking or allowing it matches their AI visibility and data-use goals.

Copilot refers to Microsoft AI assistant surfaces that may use grounding, search, and source references depending on product context.

Crawl access means a bot can fetch a URL successfully without being blocked by robots.txt, authentication, rate limits, or server rules.

Crawl controls are rules such as robots.txt, noindex, nosnippet, and server-level access decisions that affect whether crawlers can fetch or use content.

Crawler parity means important source pages should return consistent, usable content to relevant crawlers instead of showing blocked, degraded, or contradictory versions.

A crawler policy is the documented decision for which bots may access which parts of a site, usually expressed through robots.txt, server rules, and review notes.

A crawler policy table records each user agent, the allow or block decision, the business reason, the date changed, and when it should be reviewed.

A direct answer block is a section that answers its heading immediately, usually in the first sentence, so the passage can stand alone when retrieved.

Entity proximity is how close the named brand, product, person, or concept is to the answer and evidence that explain it. Strong proximity reduces ambiguity in retrieved passages.

Evidence proximity is how close the supporting source, example, date, or method note sits to the claim it supports. It helps answer systems and readers verify the statement.

An exact URL citation happens when an answer engine cites the specific page that supports the answer, not just the same domain or a related page.

A fetch test checks whether a target URL returns the expected status, canonical content, and usable HTML for the crawler or user agent being evaluated.

Gemini is Google’s AI assistant family. Source exposure varies by product and answer surface.

Google-Extended is a Google crawler control token for Gemini and Vertex AI model training use, separate from Googlebot Search crawling.

GPTBot is an OpenAI crawler associated with improving models. It should not be treated as the same thing as OpenAI search inclusion.

GPTBot vs OAI-SearchBot is the distinction between OpenAI model-improvement crawling and OpenAI search-related crawling for source visibility decisions.

Grounding is the process of connecting an AI answer to external sources, documents, search results, or other verifiable context.

A grounded answer is a generated response that is tied to external context such as web pages, business documents, or retrieved passages.

Indexability is whether a page can be included in a search index. It depends on crawl access, status code, canonical signals, and indexing directives.

An inline citation is source credit shown inside or directly beside the generated answer text, rather than only in a separate source panel.

JSON-LD is a structured data format commonly used to add schema markup to pages in a machine-readable script block.

llms.txt is a text file used as a compact source map for AI agents and retrieval systems. It is not a replacement for robots.txt or XML sitemaps.

An llms.txt source map is a curated list of the site pages that best explain its expertise, methods, tools, glossary, and original evidence.

llms.txt vs robots.txt is the distinction between a curated source map and a crawler access control file. One explains priority; the other controls access.

LocalBusiness schema is structured data that describes visible local business details such as name, address, phone, hours, geo coordinates, and sameAs profiles.

Location AEO is answer engine optimization for local businesses, branches, venues, and service areas, focused on entity clarity, reviews, listings, local pages, and AI answer visibility.

The local answer stack is the set of sources an answer engine can use for local recommendations, including business profiles, website pages, reviews, directories, maps, and structured data.

A local prompt panel is a fixed set of location-aware prompts used to test which businesses, listings, and URLs appear in answer-engine responses.

A map-grounded answer is an AI response that uses map listings, local business profiles, proximity, reviews, and place data to recommend or describe local options.

A model-improvement crawler is a bot associated with improving or training AI systems, which should be evaluated separately from search or user-triggered retrieval crawlers.

Noindex is a directive that asks search engines not to include a page in search results. It can remove a page from answer-engine source eligibility when the engine depends on search indexing.

Nosnippet is a directive that limits snippet display. For Search AI features, snippet eligibility can affect whether content can appear as supporting text.

OAI-SearchBot is an OpenAI crawler associated with search inclusion. It should be evaluated separately from GPTBot.

A panelized citation is source credit shown in a separate source panel or expandable source list instead of inline with the answer text.

Passage retrieval is the selection of a relevant section or chunk of a page in response to a query.

Perplexity is an answer engine with citation-forward search behavior. It often exposes sources more prominently than some assistant products.

PerplexityBot is a Perplexity-related crawler name that teams may consider in robots.txt access decisions.

A prompt panel is a fixed set of prompts used to test whether answer engines mention, cite, or ignore a page over time.

Prompt drift is the change in answer behavior, cited sources, or interpretation that appears when prompts are rerun over time.

A prompt family is a group of related prompts that test the same underlying intent from several phrasings or angles.

A public source page is a crawlable, indexable page intended to explain a topic clearly enough that users and answer engines can rely on it.

Query fan-out is the expansion of one user query into multiple related searches or subqueries to gather enough context for an answer.

Query rewriting is when an answer system transforms a user prompt into one or more search queries that better retrieve useful source material.

A retrieved passage is the specific section, paragraph, or chunk selected from a page as candidate context for an answer.

Reranking is a second-stage retrieval process that reorders candidate passages or documents after an initial search step.

Retrieval is the process of finding candidate documents, pages, or passages that may answer a user query.

robots.txt is a root-level file that gives crawler access instructions. For AEO, it is the primary control plane for bot access.

A robots.txt policy is the site-level access strategy that decides which compliant crawlers may request which paths.

Schema markup is structured data added to a page to clarify entities, page type, relationships, and visible content structure.

Search inclusion is the ability for a page or crawler to participate in a search-backed answer surface, separate from training or model-improvement access.

Server-level controls are hosting, CDN, firewall, authentication, and rate-limit rules that can block or shape crawler access beyond robots.txt.

Snippet eligibility is whether search systems are allowed to show a preview of page content. For some Search AI features, preview controls can affect source eligibility.

Source authority is the perceived trustworthiness of a page or publisher for a topic, based on signals such as expertise, references, original evidence, reputation, and consistency.

A source card is a visual citation element that summarizes or links to a source used by an answer engine.

A source cluster is a connected set of pages, such as a hub, guide, glossary entry, methodology page, and case study, that reinforce the same topic.

A source map is a curated list of the URLs a site wants crawlers, agents, or readers to treat as the best sources for a topic.

Source map drift happens when llms.txt, sitemaps, internal links, and canonical URLs point to different or outdated versions of important source pages.

A source panel is an interface area where an answer engine lists sources separately from inline answer text.

A source-of-truth page is the canonical page a site wants answer engines, users, and internal links to rely on for a specific concept or claim.

Source visibility is the extent to which a page, domain, or brand appears as a visible source in answer-engine results.

Structured data is machine-readable metadata that describes visible content, entities, and relationships on a page.

A training crawler is a bot associated with collecting data for model training or improvement, which should be evaluated separately from search inclusion crawlers.

User-triggered retrieval happens when an assistant fetches a page because a user action or live request requires that content.

A verification panel is a repeatable checklist or spreadsheet used to log prompt, engine, answer, cited URL, citation surface, and evidence date.

A WAF rule is a web application firewall rule that may block, challenge, or rate-limit crawlers even when robots.txt allows access.

A wrong-page citation happens when an answer engine cites the right domain but the wrong URL for the claim being made.

An AEO checklist is a publishing review that verifies crawl access, canonical URL, answer structure, evidence, internal links, schema, sitemap, llms.txt, and measurement before a page is treated as source material.

AEO keyword research is the process of finding conversational queries, prompt families, entity-intent pairs, and source-page opportunities for answer-engine visibility.

AEO tools are utilities that create artifacts such as briefs, crawler policies, schema drafts, source maps, content audits, and citation logs for answer-engine optimization work.

An agent-readable website is structured so coding agents and AI systems can understand its page roles, source pages, schema rules, crawler policy, internal links, and publishing checks.

An AI citation is visible source credit shown by an AI answer surface, such as an inline link, source card, panel link, or related source.

AI search is a search experience that uses AI-generated answers, retrieved sources, follow-up prompts, or summarized results alongside or instead of traditional blue links.

Citation-ready means a page is accessible, specific, evidence-backed, clearly structured, and useful enough to support an answer-engine citation.

Crawler access is the practical ability for a bot to request and receive usable page content, accounting for robots.txt, status code, server rules, CDN settings, and authentication.

An entity-intent pair combines a named topic, brand, product, crawler, platform, or place with the user intent the page should answer.

GEO, or generative engine optimization, is a term often used for optimizing content and source visibility in generative answer systems. On Optimize AEO it overlaps with AEO and LLM SEO.

Internal linking is the practice of connecting related pages on the same site so users, crawlers, and answer systems can understand source hierarchy and topic relationships.

LLM SEO is optimization for language-model-driven discovery, retrieval, answers, and citations. It overlaps with AEO when pages are built as clear source material.

Schema is structured vocabulary used in schema markup to describe visible page content, entities, relationships, and page types.

A sitemap is a file or page that lists important URLs. XML sitemaps help crawlers discover canonical indexable pages.

A source page is a durable page designed to answer a specific prompt family with enough clarity, evidence, and structure to be used as source material.

Source selection is the process by which a search or answer system chooses which pages, documents, or passages to use as support for an answer.

An XML sitemap lists canonical URLs for crawlers. It supports discovery but does not guarantee indexing or citation.