AEO & AI Search
How pages get quoted by ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google's AI answers: entities, citations and answer-first writing.
AEO
AEO, answer engine optimisation, is structuring a website so AI assistants and search features quote it as the answer, not just list it as a link.
AI citation
An AI citation is a link or reference an AI answer gives to the page it drew information from, the visible credit that sends traffic and trust to the source.
AI crawlers
AI crawlers are bots run by AI companies that fetch web pages to train models or to answer questions live; robots.txt can allow or block each one.
AI Overviews
AI Overviews are Google's AI-generated summaries at the top of some search results, which answer the query directly and link to the sources used.
Answer-first content
Answer-first content puts the direct answer to the page's question in the opening sentence, then adds detail, so readers and AI systems get the point immediately.
ChatGPT search
ChatGPT search is ChatGPT's ability to search the web live and answer with cited sources, making it an answer engine that sends traffic to the pages it cites.
Conversational search
Conversational search is asking questions in natural, spoken-style language, like what's the fastest way to build a website, rather than typing keywords.
DefinedTerm schema
DefinedTerm is a Schema.org type that marks a word or phrase and its definition, identifying a page as the authoritative definition of that term.
Entity
An entity is a uniquely identifiable thing, such as a person, business, product, place or concept, that search engines and AI systems store facts about.
FAQ schema
FAQ schema is structured data that marks a page's questions and answers, making them explicit to search engines and AI systems.
Featured snippet
A featured snippet is a highlighted answer box at the top of search results, quoting a short passage from one page that answers the query.
GEO
GEO, generative engine optimisation, is optimising content to be included and cited in answers written by generative AI systems.
Knowledge Graph
A knowledge graph is a database of entities and the relationships between them; Google's powers the fact panels and many direct answers in search.
llms.txt
llms.txt is a proposed plain-text file at a site's root that gives AI models a concise, curated guide to the site's most important content and links.
Perplexity
Perplexity is an AI answer engine that searches the web for each question and writes an answer with numbered citations to its sources.
Zero-click search
A zero-click search ends without the searcher clicking any result, because the answer was shown directly on the results page.