GEO Glossary — AppLabx GEO

Glossary Hub

A-Z Index

30 terms — every GEO concept defined clearly, with authoritative references.

A

AI Citation Rate AI citation rate: the share of relevant AI-generated answers that cite your brand as a source.

B

Backlink Backlink: an external link that functions as a credibility vote in the eyes of engines.

C

Citation Citation: the act of naming and referencing a source in an AI answer — the core currency of GEO.

E

E-E-A-T E-E-A-T: the experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trust signals that decide whether engines treat your brand as credible. Entity Resolution Entity resolution: the process by which machines decide that different mentions refer to the same real-world entity.

F

Featured Snippet Featured snippet: the boxed answer in classic search that AI answers have largely absorbed. Fine-tuning Fine-tuning: adapting a base model with additional training — usually reserved for platforms, not individual brands.

G

Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO): improving how AI answer engines retrieve, understand and cite your brand. Google AI Overviews Google AI Overviews: Google's generative answers shown above classic search results.

H

Hallucination Hallucination: when a model confidently states something untrue — and why citable sources matter.

I

Indexing Indexing: the step where crawled pages are parsed, understood and added to the repository that retrieval systems search.

K

Knowledge Graph Knowledge graph: a structured network of entities and relationships that AI engines use to reason about facts.

L

Large Language Model (LLM) Large language model: the neural network technology that powers ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and other answer engines.

M

Machine Learning (ML) Machine learning: the training paradigm behind modern search and answer engines.

N

Named Entity Named entity: the person, brand, product or place a machine identifies and reasons about inside your content. Natural Language Processing (NLP) Natural Language Processing: the technology that lets machines read, parse and understand human language.

P

Prompt Engineering Prompt engineering: crafting the queries and answer triggers that decide where your brand appears in AI responses. Prompt Injection Prompt injection: an attack that manipulates a model through crafted inputs — a security consideration for AI-powered products. Prompt Retrievability Prompt retrievability: how readily your brand surfaces in answers to a given set of prompts.

R

Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) RAG: the technique answer engines use to fetch live sources and ground answers in them. robots.txt robots.txt: the access control file that governs which crawlers can enter your site.

S

Search Quality Rater Guidelines Search Quality Rater Guidelines: the human-evaluation framework that shapes how engines judge content quality. Semantic Search Semantic search: retrieval that understands meaning and intent, not just keywords — the basis of modern answers. Sitemap Sitemap: the machine-readable list of your pages that tells crawlers what exists and where. Structured Data Structured data: machine-readable markup that tells AI engines exactly what your content means.

T

Tokenization Tokenization: how models chop text into pieces — a subtle but real factor in content economics.

W

Web Crawler Web crawler: the bot that discovers and downloads your pages before anything can be indexed or cited. What is Entity Optimisation? Entity optimisation: making your brand's identity unambiguous and machine-readable so AI engines can attribute facts to you reliably. What is LLM Crawlability? LLM crawlability: whether AI crawlers can discover, access and parse your site without technical barriers.

Z

Zero-Shot Learning Zero-shot learning: a model's ability to handle tasks it was never explicitly trained on.

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