Glossary · 31 terms
The language of AI visibility.
GEO, spread, grounding, the close: the vocabulary of a discipline that didn’t exist three years ago, defined in plain English. Each term links to where you can see the concept in the live index.
- AI CrawlerAn AI crawler is a bot that fetches web content for AI systems: for training corpora (GPTBot, ClaudeBot), or for live retrieval when a user's question triggers a search (PerplexityBot, OAI-SearchBot).
- AI OverviewsAI Overviews are Google Search's AI-generated answer blocks that appear above the organic results, synthesizing an answer with citations before any traditional listing is seen.
- AI VisibilityAI visibility is how often, how early, and how favorably AI assistants like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity name a brand when people ask them for recommendations.
- AI Visibility ScoreAn AI Visibility Score is a 0-100 measure of how prominently a single AI model recommends a brand in a category, based on whether the brand is mentioned, how early it appears, and how consistently it shows up across queries.
- Answer EngineAn answer engine is a system that responds to a query with a direct, synthesized answer instead of a list of links.
- Answer Engine Optimization (AEO)AEO is optimizing content so answer engines (AI systems that reply with a direct answer instead of a list of links) surface and cite your brand.
- Brand MentionA brand mention is any time an AI answer names a brand.
- CitationA citation is a source link an AI answer attaches to a claim.
- Consensus RankA consensus rank is a brand's blended position across all tracked AI models.
- EntityAn entity is a distinct thing (a brand, product, person, or place) that machines can identify and connect facts to.
- Gainers & LosersGainers and losers are the brands with the largest upward and downward rank movement at a close.
- Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)GEO is the practice of improving how often and how favorably generative AI engines (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity) recommend a brand in their answers.
- GroundingGrounding is when an AI model bases its answer on retrieved, verifiable sources (live web results or documents) instead of relying only on what it learned in training.
- HallucinationA hallucination is an AI answer stated confidently but not supported by the model's training data or retrieved sources.
- Knowledge CutoffA knowledge cutoff is the date after which a model's training data ends.
- LLM Optimization (LLMO)LLMO is a synonym for GEO: the discipline of improving a brand's presence in large language model outputs, from training data through retrieved sources.
- llms.txtllms.txt is a proposed convention: a markdown file at a site's root that gives AI systems a concise, curated map of the site's most important content.
- Model ColumnA model column is one AI model's independent ranking of a category, displayed side by side with the other models'.
- Most ContestedA most-contested ranking is a category where AI models disagree the most: different models crown different #1 brands, or brands carry wide spreads between their best and worst model ranks.
- MovementMovement is a brand's close-over-close rank change on an AI visibility index (up, down, unchanged, new entry, or re-entry).
- Prompt TrackingPrompt tracking is monitoring a fixed set of buying questions across AI models on a schedule, recording every answer, and measuring how a brand's presence in those answers changes over time.
- ReceiptsReceipts are the stored raw model answers behind an AI visibility score.
- Recommendation QueryA recommendation query is a question that asks an AI to name specific products, brands, or places ("best X for Y").
- Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG)RAG is the architecture where a model retrieves relevant documents first and generates its answer from them.
- SentimentIn AI visibility, sentiment is how favorably an answer frames a brand when it mentions it: recommended, neutral, caveated, or warned against.
- Share of VoiceIn AI visibility, share of voice is the percentage of relevant AI answers that mention a brand, across a defined set of prompts, models, and time.
- SpreadSpread is the gap between a brand's best and worst rank across AI models.
- Structured Data (Schema.org)Structured data is machine-readable markup (JSON-LD using Schema.org vocabulary) embedded in web pages that states facts explicitly (what a product is, what it costs, how it's rated) so crawlers and AI systems don't have to infer them.
- The AI 100The AI 100 is WhereDoIRank's name for the flagship cross-category board: the brands with the strongest overall AI visibility across every tracked category, ranked like an index of listed companies.
- The CloseA close is the moment an AI visibility index locks a category's rankings in.
- Zero-Click SearchA zero-click search is a query resolved entirely on the results page or inside an AI answer.