AI and SEO glossary by DP1 DESIGN, New Orleans
This page is the AI and SEO glossary published by DP1 DESIGN, a digital marketing and web design agency in New Orleans, Louisiana, founded in 2001 and now in its 25th year. It defines approximately 70 terms covering AI search optimization (AISEO, GEO, AEO, LLM SEO), traditional and local SEO, structured data and Schema.org, Core Web Vitals, and web design, each in plain English with a note on why it matters to business owners. DP1 DESIGN provides AI search optimization, local SEO, web design, digital PR, reputation management, Google Business Profile management, hosting, and advertising services. Contact: (504) 247-4345, support@dp1design.com, https://dp1design.com.
AI search moves fast and the vocabulary moves faster. This glossary defines every term we use across the DP1 DESIGN site - from classic SEO fundamentals to the new language of AISEO, GEO, AEO, and LLM SEO - in plain English, with a one-line note on why each one matters to your business. Use the A–Z bar to jump around, and link to any term directly with its anchor.
A
AEO Answer Engine Optimization
The practice of structuring content so answer engines such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews can lift it as a direct answer. AEO favors concise, factual statements placed high on the page, clear question-style headings, and supporting schema markup.
Why it matters: When an AI gives one answer instead of ten links, AEO decides whether that answer comes from you or a competitor.
AISEO AI Search Engine Optimization
The umbrella discipline that merges classic SEO with GEO, AEO, and LLM SEO. AISEO covers everything a business does to stay visible in both traditional Google rankings and generated answers from ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity.
Why it matters: Search did not die; it split. AISEO is how you win on both sides of the split.
Alt Text Alternative text
A written description attached to an image in HTML. Screen readers speak it aloud for visually impaired users, and search engines and AI crawlers read it to understand what the image shows.
Why it matters: Alt text is one of the few places where accessibility, image SEO, and AI comprehension all overlap.
Anchor Text
The visible, clickable words of a hyperlink. Search engines use anchor text as a strong hint about the topic of the page being linked to, which is why descriptive anchors beat generic ones like click here.
Why it matters: Well-written anchors help engines and AI models map how your pages relate to each other.
Article Schema
A Schema.org structured data type that tells crawlers a page is an article and identifies its headline, author, publish date, and publisher. It is usually added as JSON-LD in the page head.
Why it matters: Article schema gives AI engines the who, what, and when they need before they will trust and cite your content.
Author Rank
The idea that search engines and AI systems evaluate who wrote a piece of content, not just the site it lives on. Named authors with real credentials, bios, and Person schema tend to earn more trust than anonymous copy.
Why it matters: In an era of infinite AI-generated text, a credible byline is a ranking asset.
B
Backlink Inbound link
A link from someone else's website to yours, functioning as a public editorial vote of confidence. Search engines treat earned backlinks as a core authority signal, and AI answer engines lean on the same trust graph when choosing which sources to retrieve and cite.
Why it matters: Every system that decides who to trust at scale still counts these votes.
BERT Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers
A natural language model Google rolled into Search in 2019. BERT reads words in relation to the words around them, letting Google understand conversational queries instead of matching keywords one by one.
Why it matters: BERT marked the moment Google started understanding meaning, the first step on the road to AI search.
Bing Copilot Microsoft Copilot Search
Microsoft's AI answer layer built on the Bing index and OpenAI models. Copilot generates conversational answers with cited sources, and the same Bing index also feeds web results inside ChatGPT.
Why it matters: Ranking in Bing quietly determines how often ChatGPT can find and cite your business.
Brand SERP
The search results page that appears when someone Googles your business name. It typically mixes your website, Google Business Profile, reviews, social profiles, and news mentions.
Why it matters: Your brand SERP is your real homepage; it is the first thing prospects and AI engines see when they check you out.
Breadcrumb
A navigation trail, such as Home > Services > Local SEO, that shows where a page sits in the site hierarchy. Paired with BreadcrumbList schema, it also appears in search results in place of a raw URL.
Why it matters: Breadcrumbs help users, crawlers, and AI models understand your site structure at a glance.
Broken Link Building
A white-hat tactic that finds dead outbound links on authoritative pages, builds or matches the resource the dead link once pointed to, and offers the site owner an easy replacement that references you. The site fixes an error, readers get a working resource, and you earn a relevant link.
Why it matters: It works because everyone in the exchange genuinely wins, including the editor who says yes.
C
Canonical URL
The single URL you declare as the master version of a page when several addresses show similar content. A canonical tag consolidates ranking signals onto one URL instead of splitting them across duplicates.
Why it matters: Without canonicals, engines guess which version of a page counts, and they often guess wrong.
Citation
In local SEO, a citation is any online mention of your business name, address, and phone number on directories, maps, and data aggregators. In AI search, a citation is the source link an engine such as Perplexity or Copilot displays beside a generated answer.
Why it matters: Consistent citations build local trust, and AI citations are the new page-one ranking.
ClaudeBot
The web crawler operated by Anthropic that gathers pages for Claude and its training and retrieval systems. Like GPTBot, it identifies itself in server logs and respects robots.txt directives.
Why it matters: If ClaudeBot cannot crawl your site, Claude cannot recommend your business.
Cloudflare
A global network that sits in front of websites to provide caching, DDoS protection, SSL, and edge delivery. It also gives site owners fine-grained control over which bots and AI crawlers may access their content.
Why it matters: Fast, secure delivery is table stakes for rankings, and Cloudflare is how DP1 delivers it.
CLS Cumulative Layout Shift
A Core Web Vitals metric measuring how much a page's layout jumps around while loading. A low CLS means buttons and text stay put; a high CLS means users tap the wrong thing as elements shift.
Why it matters: Google measures the annoyance of a jumpy page, and it ranks accordingly.
Content Cluster Topic cluster
A group of interlinked pages built around one subject: a broad pillar page supported by focused articles that link back to it. Clusters demonstrate depth on a topic rather than a single lucky page.
Why it matters: Engines and LLMs reward sites that cover a topic completely, not sites that mention it once.
Core Web Vitals
Google's three field metrics for real-user page experience: LCP for loading speed, INP for responsiveness, and CLS for visual stability. They are measured from actual Chrome users and factor into rankings.
Why it matters: Slow, unstable pages lose rankings and customers at the same time.
Crawl Budget
The number of pages a search engine will fetch from your site in a given period. Large sites with slow servers, duplicate URLs, or messy redirects burn budget on junk pages instead of the ones that matter.
Why it matters: If crawlers waste their visit on clutter, your best pages get indexed late or not at all.
D
Domain Authority DA
A 1 to 100 score from Moz predicting how well a domain is likely to rank, modeled largely on the strength of its backlink profile. The scale is logarithmic, so gains get harder as the score climbs, and it is a third-party estimate: Google does not use DA or any similar score directly.
Why it matters: DA is a useful thermometer for comparing yourself to competitors, as long as you remember Google never reads it.
Domain Rating DR
Ahrefs' 1 to 100 measure of the strength of a website's backlink profile, based on how many sites link to it and how strong those linking sites are. Like Moz DA and Semrush Authority Score, it is a proprietary estimate rather than a metric Google itself consults.
Why it matters: Track DR direction over time within one tool; never compare scores across tools or treat them as grades from Google.
Duplicate Content
Substantially identical content reachable at more than one URL, on your own site or across different sites. Engines filter duplicates rather than penalize them, but filtered pages split signals and stop earning traffic.
Why it matters: Every duplicate page is a competitor you built against yourself.
E
E-E-A-T Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness
The framework from Google's quality rater guidelines for judging content credibility: first-hand experience, demonstrable expertise, recognized authority, and overall trust. AI engines apply similar credibility filters when choosing sources to cite.
Why it matters: E-E-A-T is why a 25-year-old agency with a named founder outranks an anonymous content farm.
Editorial Link Earned link
A backlink a publisher adds voluntarily because your content, data, or expertise deserved the reference, with no payment or exchange involved. Editorial links are the gold standard of link building: they are exactly what Google's guidelines reward and what AI engines' citation habits favor.
Why it matters: This is the only kind of link that compounds in value instead of aging into a liability.
Entity SEO
Optimizing around entities, meaning the real-world people, places, organizations, and concepts machines can identify, rather than raw keyword strings. It relies on schema markup, consistent facts, and connections to knowledge bases like Wikipedia and Wikidata.
Why it matters: LLMs think in entities, not keywords; if you are not a clear entity, you are invisible to them.
F
FAQPage Schema
Structured data marking up a list of questions and answers on a page. It hands engines and AI assistants your answers in a clean, machine-readable format they can quote directly.
Why it matters: FAQ markup turns your answers into ready-made material for AI responses and voice assistants.
Featured Snippet Position zero
The boxed answer Google displays above the regular organic results, pulled from a page that answers the query directly. Snippets are extracted, not written, so concise well-structured passages win them.
Why it matters: Pages that win snippets are disproportionately the ones AI Overviews and chatbots cite too.
FID First Input Delay (retired)
A former Core Web Vitals metric that measured the delay before a page responded to its first user interaction. Google retired FID in March 2024 and replaced it with INP, which measures responsiveness across the whole visit.
Why it matters: If a report still grades you on FID, the report is out of date; look for INP instead.
G
Gemini
Google's flagship family of large language models and its consumer AI assistant. Gemini powers AI Overviews and AI Mode in Google Search, which means it now shapes what billions of searchers see first.
Why it matters: Gemini is the model standing between your website and the world's largest search audience.
GEO Generative Engine Optimization
The practice of optimizing content so generative AI engines, including ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity, mention and cite your business in their answers. GEO emphasizes clear factual writing, entity consistency, structured data, crawlable pages, and authoritative mentions across the web.
Why it matters: GEO is to AI answers what SEO was to blue links: the difference between being the recommendation and being invisible.
Google AI Overviews
The AI-generated summaries Google places at the top of many search results, built by Gemini from multiple sources with citation links. They answer the query before any traditional result appears, which reduces clicks for sites that are not cited.
Why it matters: AI Overviews sit above position one; being cited in them is the new page-one goal.
Google Business Profile GBP
Your free business listing on Google Search and Maps, covering hours, photos, reviews, services, posts, and messaging. GBP is the single biggest factor in local pack rankings and a primary data source for AI answers about local businesses.
Why it matters: For a local business, an optimized GBP often drives more calls than the website itself.
GPTBot
OpenAI's web crawler, which collects pages used to train and inform ChatGPT and its search features. It announces itself in server logs and can be allowed or blocked through robots.txt.
Why it matters: Blocking GPTBot means opting your business out of ChatGPT recommendations; allow it deliberately.
Guest Post Guest article
An original article you write for another publication, accepted on editorial merit and usually carrying your byline and a link. Legitimate guest posting targets real publications with real audiences; the spam version, thin articles placed on pay-to-play blogs, is treated as link spam by Google.
Why it matters: One placement a real editor approved outperforms fifty that anyone with a credit card could have bought.
H
HARO Help a Reporter Out
A source platform connecting journalists who need expert input with people qualified to provide it. Responding quickly with specific, quotable expertise earns quotes and links inside genuinely editorial articles. The platform has changed names and owners over the years, and peers like Qwoted serve the same exchange.
Why it matters: HARO placements are among the cleanest editorial links money literally cannot buy.
Header Tags H1 through H6
The HTML heading elements that outline a page, from the single main H1 down through nested subheadings. A logical heading hierarchy tells crawlers and LLMs how ideas on the page relate.
Why it matters: Headings are the table of contents machines actually read; a clean outline makes your content quotable.
HowTo Schema
Structured data describing step-by-step instructions, including each step, tools, and time required. Google has scaled back HowTo rich results, but the markup still helps AI systems parse instructional content.
Why it matters: Clearly structured steps are exactly the format AI assistants reach for when users ask how to do something.
HTTPS Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure
The encrypted version of the web's transfer protocol, indicated by the padlock in the browser. Google confirmed HTTPS as a ranking signal in 2014, and browsers now flag plain HTTP pages as not secure.
Why it matters: An insecure site loses trust with visitors, browsers, and every engine that evaluates you.
I
Indexation Indexing
The process by which a search engine stores a crawled page in its database so it can appear in results. A page can be crawled but not indexed; only indexed pages can rank.
Why it matters: If a page is not indexed, it does not exist as far as search is concerned.
INP Interaction to Next Paint
The Core Web Vitals responsiveness metric that replaced FID in March 2024. INP measures how quickly the page visually responds to clicks, taps, and key presses across the entire visit, with 200 milliseconds or less considered good.
Why it matters: INP catches the laggy, unresponsive pages that FID let slide, and Google grades you on it.
J
JSON-LD JavaScript Object Notation for Linked Data
Google's preferred format for adding structured data to a page: a small script block of machine-readable facts that lives in the page code without touching the visible design.
Why it matters: JSON-LD is how you speak to machines in their own language without redesigning anything.
K
Keyword
A word or phrase people type or speak into a search engine, and the traditional unit of SEO research. Modern engines map keywords to underlying intent and entities rather than matching them literally.
Why it matters: Keywords still tell you what your market wants; they just no longer work as magic words to repeat.
Knowledge Graph
Google's massive database of entities and the relationships between them, which powers knowledge panels and feeds factual answers. Getting your business represented accurately in knowledge graphs shapes how both Google and LLMs describe you.
Why it matters: The Knowledge Graph is the official record machines consult about your business; make sure it is right.
L
LCP Largest Contentful Paint
The Core Web Vitals loading metric: how long until the largest visible element, usually a hero image or headline, finishes rendering. Google considers 2.5 seconds or less good.
Why it matters: LCP is the moment a visitor decides your site is fast or gives up; Google times it.
Link Velocity
The rate at which a website gains new backlinks over time. Natural velocity rises and falls with genuine attention, such as press coverage or a popular resource. A sudden spike of low-quality links is a classic footprint of link schemes and can invite algorithmic scrutiny.
Why it matters: Steady, earned growth reads as authority; an overnight explosion of cheap links reads as a scheme.
LLM Large Language Model
An AI system trained on enormous amounts of text to understand and generate language. GPT, Claude, and Gemini are LLMs, and they now sit between businesses and customers in search, chat, and voice.
Why it matters: LLMs are the new gatekeepers of discovery; what they know about you determines whether they mention you.
LLM SEO
Optimizing so large language models learn accurate information about your business and repeat it in their answers. It spans crawlable content, consistent entity facts across the web, authoritative mentions, structured data, and files like llms.txt.
Why it matters: People now ask ChatGPT for recommendations the way they once asked Google; LLM SEO decides if you come up.
llms.txt
A proposed standard file, placed at the root of a website, that gives large language models a concise plain-text or Markdown summary of the site and links to its most important pages. It plays a role for LLMs similar to what robots.txt and sitemaps do for search crawlers.
Why it matters: llms.txt is a cheap, forward-looking way to hand AI systems your story in a format built for them.
Local Pack Map pack
The block of three business listings with a map that Google shows for searches with local intent. Rankings in the pack are driven by relevance, distance, and prominence rather than classic web rankings alone.
Why it matters: For near-me searches, the local pack is the entire game above the fold.
Local SEO
The discipline of ranking a business for searches in its geographic area, spanning Google Business Profile, reviews, citations, localized content, and local links. It targets the map pack, localized organic results, and now local AI answers.
Why it matters: Most customers for a local business start with a local search; local SEO puts you in front of them.
M
Meta Description
The short page summary in HTML that engines often display under your title in results. It is not a ranking factor, but it heavily influences whether people click your listing over the next one.
Why it matters: The meta description is free ad copy on the results page; write it like you want the click.
Meta Title Title tag
The HTML title of a page, shown as the clickable headline in search results and the browser tab label. It remains one of the most direct on-page relevance signals engines read.
Why it matters: Fifty-some characters of title carry more ranking weight than most paragraphs on the page.
Mobile-First Indexing
Google's policy of crawling and indexing the mobile version of a website as the primary version. Content that exists only on desktop effectively does not exist for ranking purposes.
Why it matters: Your mobile site is your real site in Google's eyes; the desktop view is the courtesy copy.
N
NAP Name, Address, Phone
The three core facts of a local business identity as they appear across the web. Consistent NAP data on your site, Google Business Profile, and directories confirms to engines and AI systems that they are all describing the same business.
Why it matters: Every mismatched phone number or old address chips away at the confidence machines have in your listing.
Nofollow rel=nofollow
A link attribute telling search engines not to pass ranking credit through the link. Since 2019 Google treats it as a hint rather than a strict rule, and companion attributes exist for sponsored and user-generated links.
Why it matters: Nofollow links pass less authority, but they still drive traffic and brand visibility that AI systems notice.
O
Open Graph OG tags
Meta tags, originally from Facebook, that control the title, description, and image shown when a page is shared on social platforms and messaging apps. Without them, platforms guess, usually badly.
Why it matters: Open Graph tags decide whether a shared link looks professional or broken.
Organic Search
The unpaid listings on a search results page, earned through relevance and authority rather than advertising spend. Organic traffic compounds over time, unlike paid traffic that stops when the budget does.
Why it matters: Organic search is the asset you own; ads are the space you rent.
P
PageRank
Google's original algorithm, which scored pages by the quantity and quality of links pointing to them. The public toolbar score is long gone, but link-based authority remains foundational to how Google ranks.
Why it matters: Twenty-five years later, the core idea still holds: links from trusted sites make you trusted.
Perplexity
An AI answer engine that searches the live web and generates cited, conversational answers in real time. Its heavy use of citations makes it one of the clearest windows into which sources AI engines trust.
Why it matters: Perplexity shows its sources on every answer; being one of them is measurable, winnable visibility.
Person Schema
Structured data describing an individual: name, job title, credentials, employer, and profile links. Attached to author bios and about pages, it connects content to a verifiable human being.
Why it matters: Person schema turns a byline into a machine-verifiable expert, which feeds directly into E-E-A-T.
PPC Pay-Per-Click
Advertising where you pay only when someone clicks your ad, with Google Ads as the dominant platform. PPC buys immediate visibility while organic and AI-search work builds long-term presence.
Why it matters: PPC is the fastest way to test demand and fill the pipeline while organic authority compounds.
Prompt Engineering
The craft of writing instructions that get reliably good output from AI models. For marketers it also means studying the prompts customers use, such as best web designer in New Orleans, and optimizing to appear in those answers.
Why it matters: Understanding how people prompt AI is the new keyword research.
Q
Query Intent Search intent
The underlying goal behind a search: to learn something, find a specific site, compare options, or buy. Engines and AI assistants rank and answer based on intent, so content must match the goal, not just the words.
Why it matters: Content that matches the words but misses the intent ranks for a moment and converts never.
Qwoted
A platform that connects journalists and media outlets with expert sources, similar in spirit to HARO. Responding to relevant requests earns press quotes, brand mentions, and authoritative backlinks.
Why it matters: Earned media mentions are among the strongest signals that push AI engines to cite your brand.
R
RAG Retrieval-Augmented Generation
An AI architecture where the model retrieves current documents, often via live web search, and uses them to ground its generated answer. Perplexity, Copilot, and ChatGPT search all work this way.
Why it matters: RAG means AI answers are pulled from crawlable, well-structured pages in real time; yours can be one of them.
Rank Tracking
Monitoring where your pages appear for target searches over time. Modern tracking includes geographic grid scans for map rankings and monitoring whether AI engines mention or cite your business.
Why it matters: You cannot improve a position you never measure.
RankBrain
A machine learning system Google added in 2015 to help interpret queries it had never seen before, matching them to concepts rather than exact words. It was among the first AI components inside Google Search.
Why it matters: RankBrain was the early warning that search was becoming AI; a decade later, it fully has.
Referring Domain Linking domain
A unique website that links to yours at least once, regardless of how many individual links it sends. Fifty links from one site count as one referring domain, which is why referring domains, not raw backlink counts, are the honest unit for measuring and benchmarking authority.
Why it matters: Ten links from ten respected sites beat a thousand links from one junk directory.
Rich Snippet Rich result
A search listing enhanced with extras like star ratings, prices, FAQs, or event details, generated from structured data on the page. Rich results take more space and earn more clicks than plain listings.
Why it matters: The same markup that earns rich snippets also feeds cleaner facts to AI engines.
robots.txt
A plain text file at the root of a website that tells crawlers which areas they may or may not access. It now also governs AI crawlers such as GPTBot and ClaudeBot.
Why it matters: One careless line in robots.txt can silently remove you from Google and every AI assistant at once.
S
Schema.org
The shared vocabulary of structured data types, maintained by Google, Microsoft, and others, used to describe things like businesses, articles, products, FAQs, and people in machine-readable form. It is most commonly implemented as JSON-LD.
Why it matters: Schema.org is the closest thing to a common language between your website and every AI reading it.
SEO Search Engine Optimization
The practice of improving a website's visibility in unpaid search results through technical health, relevant content, and earned authority. After more than two decades, it is evolving into AISEO as generated answers join ranked links.
Why it matters: SEO is still the foundation; AI engines learned to read the web from the same signals.
SERP Search Engine Results Page
The page an engine returns after a search, now a mix of AI Overviews, ads, map packs, organic listings, images, videos, and People Also Ask boxes. Ten blue links have not been the whole story for years.
Why it matters: Every SERP feature you win is real estate a competitor does not get.
SGE Search Generative Experience
Google's 2023 experimental name for AI-generated answers inside Search. It graduated in May 2024 and became Google AI Overviews, the term used today.
Why it matters: If you see SGE in an article, read it as AI Overviews; the experiment became the default.
Sitemap
A file, usually XML, listing the pages of a site so crawlers can discover them efficiently, along with signals like last-modified dates. HTML sitemaps do the same job for human visitors.
Why it matters: A sitemap will not rank a bad page, but it makes sure your good ones get found quickly.
Speakable Schema
Structured data that flags which sections of a page are best suited to be read aloud by voice assistants. It points text-to-speech systems at your clearest, most quotable passages.
Why it matters: Speakable markup nominates your own words for the single answer a voice assistant speaks.
Structured Data
Machine-readable code, usually Schema.org vocabulary in JSON-LD format, that labels the facts on a page: this is a business, this is its phone number, this is a review score. It removes guesswork for crawlers and AI models.
Why it matters: Structured data is the difference between machines guessing what your page says and knowing it.
T
Topical Authority
The credibility a site earns by covering a subject deeply and consistently across many interlinked pages, rather than publishing one article and moving on. Engines and LLMs treat demonstrated depth as expertise.
Why it matters: Authority on a topic gets you cited for the whole topic, not just one query.
Toxic Backlink Spam link
A link from a manipulative or low-trust source such as a link farm, PBN, or hacked site, which associates your domain with a bad neighborhood of the web. Google says its systems ignore most of them automatically, so disavowing is usually reserved for manual actions or clear negative SEO attacks.
Why it matters: The real danger is buying them yourself: a toxic profile fails both Google's spam filters and AI engines' trust checks.
TTFB Time to First Byte
How long a server takes to send the first byte of a response after a request. It is the floor under every other speed metric; nothing on the page can load before the first byte arrives.
Why it matters: A slow server taxes every page view, every crawl, and every Core Web Vitals score you have.
U
URL Structure
The way web addresses are organized on a site: short, readable, descriptive paths such as /local-seo instead of /page?id=4721. Clean URLs help users, crawlers, and AI systems understand a page before loading it.
Why it matters: A URL is often quoted, cited, and read aloud; make it say something.
UX Signals User experience signals
Behavioral and experience indicators, including engagement, page speed, mobile usability, layout stability, and intrusive interstitials, that engines use to judge whether a page satisfies visitors.
Why it matters: Google increasingly ranks the experience, not just the words on the page.
V
Voice Search
Searching by speaking to an assistant such as Siri, Alexa, or Gemini instead of typing. Voice queries are longer and more conversational, and the assistant typically delivers exactly one answer.
Why it matters: Voice has no page two, and no page one either; there is one answer, and it should be yours.
W
WCAG Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
The international standard for making websites usable by people with disabilities, covering contrast, keyboard navigation, alt text, and more. Many accessibility practices double as machine-readability improvements.
Why it matters: Accessible sites serve more humans, avoid legal risk, and are easier for AI crawlers to parse.
WebPage Schema
A general Schema.org type describing a page itself, including its name, description, language, and relationship to the site and organization. Specific subtypes exist for about pages, contact pages, and FAQs.
Why it matters: WebPage schema gives every page a machine-readable identity card, tying it back to your business entity.
WordPress
The open-source content management system behind roughly 40 percent of the web. Its flexibility is a strength; its plugin sprawl, bloat, and security exposure are the usual costs when it is built carelessly.
Why it matters: WordPress can be fast, secure, and AI-ready, but only when it is built and maintained by people who know how.
X–Z
XML Sitemap
The machine-readable version of a sitemap, listing URLs with metadata like last-modified dates, submitted to engines through Search Console and referenced in robots.txt. It is the standard way to announce your pages to crawlers.
Why it matters: An accurate XML sitemap gets new and updated pages discovered in hours instead of weeks.
YMYL Your Money or Your Life
Google's label for topics that can affect a person's health, finances, safety, or wellbeing. YMYL content is held to the strictest E-E-A-T standards, and AI systems apply similar caution when citing sources on these topics.
Why it matters: On YMYL topics, credentials and trust are not nice-to-haves; they are the entry fee.
Zero-Click Search
A search that ends without a click on any result, because the answer appeared directly on the results page or in an AI-generated response. AI Overviews and chatbots are pushing zero-click behavior higher every year.
Why it matters: When clicks disappear, being the cited, named source inside the answer is the visibility that remains.
Glossary - quick questions
What is the difference between GEO, AEO and LLM SEO?
They overlap heavily. GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) is the broad practice of getting cited by generative AI engines. AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) focuses on structuring content so it can be lifted as a direct answer. LLM SEO focuses on what large language models like GPT and Claude learn and repeat about your business. In practice, one good strategy covers all three, and we group them under AISEO.
What does AISEO stand for?
AISEO stands for AI Search Engine Optimization. It is the umbrella term for keeping a business visible in both traditional search rankings and AI-generated answers from ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews. It combines classic SEO fundamentals with newer disciplines like GEO, AEO, entity optimization, and structured data, so machines describe your business accurately and recommend it more often.
What is llms.txt?
llms.txt is a proposed standard file placed at the root of a website that gives large language models a concise, plain-text summary of the site and links to its most important pages. Think of it as a welcome guide for AI systems, similar to what robots.txt and XML sitemaps do for search engine crawlers. It costs almost nothing to add and positions your site for AI-first discovery.
How often is this glossary updated?
We review and update the glossary on an ongoing basis, typically every quarter, because AI search terminology changes quickly. Terms get added as new standards emerge, and retired concepts, like FID or SGE, are kept with clear notes about what replaced them. The date in the page header reflects the most recent revision. Spot something missing? Email support@dp1design.com and we will add it.
About DP1 DESIGN
DP1 DESIGN is a New Orleans digital marketing agency specializing in AI Search Optimization (AEO / GEO / LLM-SEO), Local SEO, and website design. Founded in 2001, DP1 DESIGN helps businesses across New Orleans, Louisiana, and beyond gain visibility across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Google, and every major AI answer platform. Our team delivers full stack digital marketing services - branding, websites, content strategy, and technical optimization - to businesses in restaurants, medical practices, law firms, retail, home services, contractors, and more.
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