Glossary
Glossary
The terms that keep coming up in this work, explained plainly. One answer per term, short enough to quote.
- AEO (Answer Engine Optimization)
- AEO is the practice of writing content so it answers a question directly and can therefore be lifted verbatim by a search engine or assistant.
- In practice that means a self-contained 40–60 word answer paragraph early on the page, headings phrased as questions, structured FAQ blocks and visible update dates. AEO and GEO overlap heavily; the difference is that AEO focuses on the shape of the answer while GEO focuses on the credibility of the source.
- Relatedgeofaq-schema
- Core Web Vitals
- Core Web Vitals are Google’s three measures of perceived performance: loading (LCP), interactivity (INP) and visual stability (CLS).
- The targets are LCP under 2.5 seconds, INP under 200 milliseconds and CLS under 0.1, measured at the 75th percentile of real visits. They are a ranking signal, but the larger effect is indirect: slow pages lose visitors before the content is even visible.
- Relatedseostatic-rendering
- FAQPage schema
- FAQPage is a schema.org type that marks up question-and-answer pairs on a page so search engines can surface them directly.
- The requirement is that the marked-up answer is visible on the page and identical to the markup. Generate both the visible HTML and the markup from one source and they can never diverge by definition.
- Relatedaeostructured-data
- GEO (Generative Engine Optimization)
- GEO is the practice of structuring content so it appears in answers generated by AI systems such as ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews.
- Unlike classic SEO, where the goal is a position in a list, GEO is about becoming the source that gets cited when an answer is composed. What measurably helps: specific numbers, named expertise, clear direct answers, and being mentioned on other credible sites. Google has stated that neither llms.txt nor special schema markup is required for AI Overviews — the foundation is still ordinary, well-built SEO.
- Relatedaeoseollms-txt
- hreflang
- hreflang is markup telling search engines which language versions of a page exist and how they relate to one another.
- The most common mistake is pointing at a language version that does not exist, which is worse than omitting it. Every page should also reference itself. Generate the markup from a shared route table and it becomes correct by construction rather than by discipline.
- Relatedseo
- llms.txt
- llms.txt is a proposed text file at a site’s root listing its most important content in markdown, intended to be read by language models.
- It is not a standard any major search engine requires — Google has explicitly called it unnecessary for its own systems. It also costs almost nothing to generate, and some agent frameworks do read it. Reasonable position: publish it, but build no strategy on it.
- Relatedgeo
- SEO (search engine optimisation)
- SEO is the practice of making a website intelligible and credible to search engines so it appears for relevant queries.
- The fundamentals have not changed with AI search: technical health, content that genuinely answers something, internal link structure and external credibility. Google itself describes GEO and AEO as "still SEO". What has changed is what visibility yields — citations rather than clicks.
- Relatedgeoaeocore-web-vitals
- Static rendering
- Static rendering means a page’s HTML is built in advance and sent complete on the first request, rather than assembled in the browser.
- It is the single most important technical precondition for visibility. Crawlers and AI agents frequently do not run JavaScript, so content that only exists after hydration is invisible to them. Static rendering also delivers a better LCP almost for free.
- Relatedcore-web-vitalsgeo
- Structured data
- Structured data is machine-readable markup, usually JSON-LD following schema.org, that describes what a page is about.
- It drives classic rich results and helps search engines connect your site to the right entity. It is not, however, required for AI Overviews, and a May 2026 study found no measurable lift in citations when JSON-LD was added to pages already appearing there. Add it — but do not count it as your GEO strategy.
- Relatedfaq-schemageo
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