AI Visibility Glossary
32 terms every local business owner should know to compete in AI-mediated search.
By Shawn Craig, Founder, Local Answers
Published June 13, 2026 · Last updated June 13, 2026
AI Visibility Glossary
This glossary defines the 32 terms every local business owner should understand to compete in AI-mediated search. The terms are organized in two sections: Core Concepts, which covers the central vocabulary of AI visibility as a discipline, and Related Terms, which covers the supporting concepts you will encounter when reading about AI search, local SEO, and answer engine optimization. Every definition is written to stand alone, so you can lift any single entry without losing meaning.
How to use this glossary
- Core Concepts are the 14 terms that define the discipline. If you are new to AI visibility, start here.
- Related Terms are the 18 supporting concepts you will encounter in the broader conversation. Reference them as needed.
- Each Core Concept entry links to the dedicated page covering it in depth.
- Every definition is standalone and complete. You do not need to read the surrounding entries to understand any single term.
Core Concepts
AI Visibility
AI visibility (noun). The measurable rate at which generative AI platforms recommend a specific business when users ask conversational questions about products, services, or local providers in that business's category. AI visibility is the outcome that GEO, AEO, and local SEO together produce.
Example: A roofing company in Forsyth County that appears in ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude responses to "best roofer in Cumming GA" has strong AI visibility for that query.
GEO (Generative Engine Optimization)
GEO (noun). The discipline of optimizing a business's content, authority, and digital presence so that generative AI systems are more likely to cite, reference, or recommend it when answering user prompts. GEO is the input. AI visibility is the output.
Example: A business publishing original local research with named authorship and structured data is doing GEO. The goal is to earn citations inside AI-generated answers.
AEO (Answer Engine Optimization)
AEO (noun). The discipline of structuring content so that answer engines, including AI assistants, voice search platforms, and featured snippet systems, select it as the direct response to a user's question. AEO is about being the answer, not just a source that references the answer.
Example: A page that opens with a direct two-sentence answer followed by question-based headings and FAQ schema is structured for AEO.
The Six Signals of AI Visibility
The Six Signals of AI Visibility (framework). The six trust and authority signals AI platforms evaluate when deciding which businesses to recommend: review ecosystem strength, entity consistency, citations and off-site mentions, content depth and clarity, structured data, and local relevance. Each signal compounds the others. AI visibility comes from getting all six right, not from winning any single one.
Example: A business with strong reviews but inconsistent entity data will underperform a business with moderate reviews and consistent data across all directories.
The Three Pillars of GEO
The Three Pillars of GEO (framework). The three foundational requirements for being cited and recommended by generative AI systems: retrievability (AI crawlers can find and read your content), source-worthiness (your content is something AI would confidently cite), and off-site references (your business is mentioned across the web). Strength in one pillar does not compensate for weakness in another.
Example: A business with high-quality content but a robots.txt file blocking GPTBot has built source-worthiness but failed retrievability. The content is invisible to ChatGPT regardless of its quality.
The Four Principles of AEO
The Four Principles of AEO (framework). The four characteristics that determine whether content gets extracted as a direct answer by AI platforms and answer engines: answer-first formatting, question-based structure, extractable definitions, and schema markup. Content missing any one of these principles is significantly less likely to be lifted as an answer.
Example: A page that opens with two paragraphs of context before answering the question has failed Principle 1 (answer-first formatting), and will rarely be extracted regardless of how good the rest of the content is.
AI Recommendation
AI recommendation (noun). An instance in which a generative AI platform names a specific business by name when responding to a user query about businesses in that category or geography. AI recommendations are confidence-based, not ranking-based.
Example: When ChatGPT responds to "best HVAC company in Forsyth County" with three named businesses, each of those mentions is a discrete AI recommendation.
AI Citation
AI citation (noun). An instance in which a generative AI platform references content from a specific website as the source for information in its generated response, often with a visible link or attribution. Citations differ from recommendations because they reference content rather than name a business as a service provider.
Example: A Perplexity response that quotes statistics from a published research study and links to the source is an AI citation of that source.
Entity SEO
Entity SEO (noun). The discipline of building a coherent, machine-readable representation of a business as a defined entity, with consistent attributes (name, location, services, personnel) across all sources where the business is referenced. Entity SEO underpins both AI visibility and modern search rankings.
Example: Ensuring a business is named "Local Answers" consistently across every directory, social profile, website page, and schema declaration is entity SEO work.
Knowledge Graph
Knowledge graph (noun). A structured database of entities (businesses, people, places, concepts) and the relationships between them, used by search engines and AI platforms to organize and retrieve information. Google's Knowledge Graph is the most prominent example, but every major AI platform maintains a similar internal representation.
Example: When Google displays an information panel next to a business name in search results, the data in that panel comes from its Knowledge Graph entry for that entity.
E-E-A-T
E-E-A-T (framework). Google's evaluation framework standing for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. E-E-A-T is used by Google's quality raters and influences how Google's algorithm evaluates content, especially for topics related to health, finance, and other consequential decisions.
Example: A blog post about chiropractic care written by a licensed chiropractor with a public bio, credentials, and clinic affiliations has stronger E-E-A-T signals than the same post published anonymously.
Local SEO
Local SEO (noun). The discipline of optimizing a business's online presence to rank in local search results, particularly Google's local pack, Google Maps, and Bing Places. Local SEO emphasizes signals like Google Business Profile completeness, local citations, reviews, and geographic relevance.
Example: A business optimizing its Google Business Profile, building NAP-consistent citations, and earning local reviews is doing local SEO.
NAP
NAP (noun, acronym). The three core pieces of business information used by search engines and directories to verify and cross-reference local businesses: Name, Address, and Phone number. NAP consistency, meaning identical formatting across every online source, is a foundational signal for both local SEO and AI visibility.
Example: A business listed as "Smith and Sons HVAC" on Google and "Smith & Sons HVAC LLC" on Yelp has inconsistent NAP, which weakens both local SEO and AI visibility signals.
Citation (Local SEO context)
Citation (noun, local SEO context). Any online mention of a local business that includes some combination of the business's Name, Address, Phone number, or website. Citations function as third-party confirmation that a business exists and operates where it claims to. Citation volume and consistency are core local SEO and AI visibility signals.
Example: A business listed on the Forsyth County Chamber of Commerce website, BBB, Yelp, and a local industry directory has four citations.
Related Terms
Answer Engine
Answer engine (noun). Any system that delivers direct answers to user questions rather than a list of links. Includes AI assistants (ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity), voice search platforms (Siri, Google Assistant, Alexa), and featured snippet systems within traditional search engines.
Answer-First Formatting
Answer-first formatting (noun). A content structure in which the direct answer to a question appears in the first two to three sentences of a page or section, before any context, background, or qualification. Answer-first formatting is the most important content-level signal for AEO.
Backlink
Backlink (noun). A hyperlink from one website to another. Backlinks are a primary signal for traditional SEO and, when from authoritative sources, contribute to both Google rankings and AI source-worthiness evaluations.
Crawler / Bot
Crawler (noun). An automated program that visits websites to read and index their content. Search engines and AI platforms each operate their own crawlers (Googlebot, GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, Bingbot). Crawlers must be permitted in a site's robots.txt file to access its content.
Featured Snippet
Featured snippet (noun). A direct answer displayed at the top of a Google search results page, extracted from a webpage that Google has identified as the best response to the query. Featured snippets are an early form of answer engine output and remain a primary AEO target.
Generative AI
Generative AI (noun). A class of artificial intelligence systems that generate new content (text, images, audio, video) in response to user prompts. Generative AI platforms relevant to local business visibility include ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, Grok, and Microsoft Copilot.
Google Business Profile (GBP)
Google Business Profile (noun). The free Google product that allows businesses to manage their public presence across Google Search and Google Maps. Formerly called Google My Business. GBP completeness and activity are among the highest-impact signals for both local SEO and Gemini's AI recommendations.
IndexNow
IndexNow (noun). A protocol that allows websites to notify search engines (currently Bing, Yandex, and others) of new or updated content instantly, rather than waiting for crawlers to discover changes. Useful for accelerating indexation by Bing and Copilot.
JSON-LD
JSON-LD (noun, acronym). JavaScript Object Notation for Linked Data. The format Google and most modern search engines recommend for implementing structured data on websites. JSON-LD lives in a script tag in the page's HTML and declares structured facts about the page's content.
llms.txt
llms.txt (noun). A proposed standard file placed at the root of a website that provides AI systems with a curated overview of the site's most LLM-friendly content. The standard has limited adoption and is not relied upon by Google, but some publishers have added it as a low-cost addition to their AI optimization stack.
LocalBusiness Schema
LocalBusiness schema (noun). A specific type of structured data, defined at Schema.org, used to declare that a website represents a local business. LocalBusiness schema includes properties for service area, address, hours, telephone, and price range, and is foundational for both local SEO and AI visibility.
Reviews (as a signal)
Reviews (noun, plural). Customer-written evaluations of a business published on platforms like Google, Facebook, Yelp, BBB, and industry-specific sites. As AI visibility signals, reviews are evaluated by volume, recency, platform diversity, sentiment, and the specificity of what reviewers say.
Robots.txt
Robots.txt (noun). A plain text file placed at the root of a website that tells web crawlers which parts of the site they may or may not access. Used to control crawler behavior. Many sites accidentally block AI crawlers in robots.txt, making their content invisible to AI platforms.
Schema.org
Schema.org (noun). A collaborative vocabulary, founded by Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and Yandex, that defines the standard types and properties used in structured data. Most schema markup deployed on the web today uses Schema.org vocabulary in JSON-LD format.
sameAs
sameAs (noun, schema property). A property in Schema.org structured data used to declare other URLs that refer to the same entity. For local businesses, sameAs typically links to a business's LinkedIn, Facebook, X, YouTube, and other official profiles, reinforcing the entity's identity across the web.
Sitemap
Sitemap (noun). A file (typically XML format) that lists the pages of a website and provides metadata to help search engines discover and index them efficiently. Submitting a sitemap to Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools accelerates indexation.
Source-Worthiness
Source-worthiness (noun). The degree to which content is likely to be cited or referenced by a generative AI system. Driven by signals including originality, named authorship, specificity, structure, and freshness. The second pillar of GEO.
Structured Data
Structured data (noun). Machine-readable code embedded in a webpage's HTML that explicitly declares facts about the page's content, the business that owns it, and the relationships between them. Most structured data is implemented in JSON-LD format using Schema.org vocabulary.
Voice Search
Voice search (noun). The use of spoken queries to a digital assistant (Siri, Google Assistant, Alexa, ChatGPT Voice) instead of typed queries to a search engine. Voice search returns direct answers rather than ranked lists, making it the original use case for AEO.
See Also
Need help applying these concepts to your business?
Our AI Visibility Audit measures your performance across the Six Signals of AI Visibility and gives you a prioritized roadmap to improve.
Run My Audit