Resources
Reference material for AI SEO, AEO and GEO — plain-language definitions and curated starting points, apart from the day-to-day articles on the blog.
Start Here
Curated reading paths through our real published guides, ordered foundational to advanced.
Glossary
Plain-language definitions for the terms that come up constantly in this space.
AI Citation
An AI citation is when a generative AI engine names a specific page as the source for a claim in its generated answer — distinct from a mention (being referenced with no named source) or a click (a user actually visiting the page).
AI Crawler
An AI crawler is an automated bot — such as OpenAI's GPTBot or Perplexity's PerplexityBot — that fetches and reads web pages to gather training data or real-time information for an AI system, distinct from traditional search engine crawlers like Googlebot.
AI Overview
An AI Overview is Google's AI-generated summary shown in search results, synthesizing information from multiple sources into a single answer instead of — or above — a traditional list of links.
AI SEO
AI SEO is the practice of making a website discoverable, understandable, and citable by AI-powered search and answer engines — ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Google's AI-driven results — rather than only ranking in a traditional list of links.
Answer Engine Optimization (AEO)
AEO is the practice of structuring a page so AI answer engines can locate a direct answer, understand what entity it belongs to, and extract it into a generated response.
Direct Answer
A direct answer is a self-contained 1-3 sentence response to a specific question, placed at or near the top of the relevant section, before supporting detail — written so it makes complete sense if quoted entirely on its own.
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