Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)
Making your brand citable inside ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, Claude, Gemini, and Bing Copilot — not just ranking on Google.
// Glossary
The AI search vocabulary,
plain English.
Five terms you need to argue intelligently about discovery in the answer-engine era. No buzzwords, no filler, no consultant-speak.
// Entries
Start here.
Answer Engine Optimization (AEO)
The older, narrower term for optimizing toward direct-answer surfaces like featured snippets, voice assistants, and AI Overviews. GEO’s predecessor.
Google AI Overviews
Google’s AI-generated answer summaries that sit above the blue links, citing sources inline. The single biggest reason organic CTR cratered in 2025.
Share of Voice (SoV)
The percentage of tracked prompts in your category where an AI engine names or cites your brand. The KPI that replaces keyword rank.
llms.txt
A robots.txt-style plain-text file that points AI engines at your canonical content. Early standard, real adoption, useful even before universal support.
// Why this exists
Search didn’t die. It got translated.
Every term on this page describes a piece of the same shift: query-and-rank gave way to ask-and-answer. The vocabulary is new because the surface is new. If you’re going to operate in it, you should be able to define it in one breath.