AI search glossary
Last updated 13 November 2026
Your next customer may ask an AI assistant who to call before they ever open a search page. We work with business owners to be found there, and that comes with a new vocabulary. Here it is in plain words, one everyday picture each. Where an article goes deeper, the term links to it.
Google AI Mode
Google AI Mode is a chat-style way to search: you ask a whole question the way you would ask a well-informed friend, Google runs several searches behind the scenes, and you get one written answer with links to the pages it drew on. Follow-up questions carry on the conversation, so nobody has to start again.
AI Overview
An AI Overview is the short written summary Google sometimes places above the normal search results, like an assistant answering before you have scrolled. It links the pages it used, so a clear, quotable page gives you a chance of being named. Google decides when one appears; a site cannot ask for one.
GEO (generative engine optimisation)
GEO, short for generative engine optimisation, is the work of making your website easy for AI answer tools to read, trust and quote, so your business is one they can name when a customer asks. The name comes from a 2023 research paper. Most of it is ordinary search housekeeping plus plainly stated facts.
AEO (answer engine optimisation)
AEO, or answer engine optimisation, is the older name for the same aim: writing a page so a machine can lift a direct answer from it, like a receptionist who always has the reply ready. It began with featured snippets and voice assistants, and now covers AI answers too.
Schema markup (structured data)
Schema markup is a hidden name badge for a web page: labels behind the scenes that tell machines this is the business name, this is the address, these are the opening hours. It helps a machine read what your page already says instead of guessing. It does not add facts the page does not show.
AI crawler
An AI crawler is a robot visitor sent by an AI company to read web pages, either to train a model or to fetch an answer while someone is asking. Think of a stranger walking into your shop to look around. A small instruction file on your site, called robots.txt, decides which of them are welcome.
llms.txt
llms.txt is a short plain-text page at the front door of your website that points AI tools to the pages that matter most, like a printed directory at a shop entrance. It is a proposal, not a standard every AI company follows, so treat it as a courtesy rather than a switch.
Query fan-out
Query fan-out is how AI search handles a long question: it splits it into smaller searches, runs them together and stitches the findings into one answer. Ask for a dentist near the station who is good with nervous children, and each part is searched on its own. A page can serve one part of a question it never mentions whole.
Answer block
An answer block is a short paragraph that answers one question completely, placed right under the heading that asks it, like a receptionist who gives the whole answer in one breath. It is the passage an AI answer can quote without needing the rest of the page.
Zero-click search
A zero-click search is one that ends on the results page because the answer is already there, in a summary, a map or a box. It is like reading a shop's opening hours off the window without stepping inside: the searcher learns something and never visits a website, so being named there matters too.
E-E-A-T
E-E-A-T stands for experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trust: the qualities Google's quality raters are asked to look for, much as a customer sizes up a shopfront before walking in. On a small business site it mostly means saying plainly who runs the business and how to reach them.
Curious where your own site stands?
The free checker reads your site the way Google and AI assistants do, then gives you two scores in seconds: one for search, one for AI answers.