Glossary

AEO & SEO Glossary

Plain-English definitions of the terms behind answer engine optimization and modern SEO. Short, direct, and written for marketers, founders, and teams working with an agency.

All glossary terms

36 terms

Crawling

The process of search and AI bots reading your website. If bots can't read your pages, you can't rank or be cited.

Entity

The machine-readable version of who your business is: consistent name, logo, contact details, and social profiles across the web. AI tools stitch these together to decide what to say about you.

FAQ content

Question-and-answer blocks on your pages. Both Google and AI tools lift answers straight from these, which makes them one of the easiest AEO wins.

Featured snippet / People Also Ask

Google's answer boxes that appear above or inside the link list. Like FAQ blocks, they're easy pickings for AI answer engines.

GA4 (Google Analytics 4)

Google's free dashboard showing who visits your site and where they come from - including AI-referred visitors. The default way to measure whether all of this is working.

Generative AI (gen AI)

AI that creates new text, images, or code rather than just finding existing content. ChatGPT is the most famous example.

GEO (Generative Engine Optimization)

The same practice as AEO under a different name. Treat them as one thing.

Hallucination

When AI confidently says something false. For a business, this matters: an AI may describe your services, pricing, or hours incorrectly, and customers will believe it unless your website tells the correct story.

Indexing

Being stored in a search engine's or AI system's database so you can appear in results. A crawled page that isn't indexed is invisible.

Keyword

The word or phrase a customer types, like "Webflow agency Toronto" or "SEO audit for my website." Most search and AI strategies start with knowing which keywords your customers use.
No terms found.

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