Glossary of AI visibility

Glossary

GEO

Generative Engine Optimization: the work of making your brand appear in the answers from generative engines such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity.

AEO

Answer Engine Optimization: the same idea from the answer's side — optimising for the engine that answers, not for the list of links.

Generative engine

A system that writes the answer instead of listing links. It is where the buying decision now happens before the click.

Mention

When the answer names your brand, with or without a link. This is what the score measures.

Citation (link)

When the answer names your brand and points to one of your pages. Worth more than a mention: it is the source the engine used.

Mention rate

In how many of the asked questions your brand appeared. "32%" means 32 out of 100 questions — not 32% of the times someone asks.

Share of voice

Of the answers where some brand was mentioned, in how many yours appeared. It measures the dispute, not the volume.

Average position

The position your brand usually takes when it appears. Position 1 is the first recommendation.

Intent class

The kind of question: discovery (the person does not know you), comparison (they are choosing), brand (they have heard of you) and decision (they are hiring). Appearing in one and vanishing in another is the diagnosis.

Dossier

The complete report of one analysis: score, evidence behind every finding, what to fix and the order that pays off first.

Cycle

The interval between two identical measurements, 15 days on monitoring. Only cycles from the same instrument are compared with each other.

Evidence tier

The declared strength of each statement in the dossier: A is a controlled experiment, B is correlation at scale, C is official structure and D is a myth with no evidence. The tier is printed next to the finding.