AI Visibility Glossary
GEO (Generative Engine Optimization)
Why it matters
Generative engines cite sources to ground their answers. Being one of those cited sources drives referral traffic, builds authority, and gets your brand named directly in the response users read.
How to measure it
Measure how frequently AI engines cite your domain, the authority of the pages doing the citing, and whether you appear as a named source versus a competitor. This is core to the Top Citation Signal Score.
Measure your AI visibility
See how AI engines cite and recommend your brand, scored on eight signals across every major engine. Free.
Related terms
AEO, or Answer Engine Optimization, is the practice of optimizing content and brand signals so AI answer engines surface and recommend you in their responses. Where SEO targets a ranked list of links, AEO targets being the answer itself.
Citation rate is how frequently AI engines cite a brand or its website as a source when answering questions in its category. A high citation rate means the engine repeatedly leans on your content to ground its answers.
AI visibility is how often and how prominently a brand appears in the answers generated by AI engines like ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and Perplexity. A brand with high AI visibility is named, cited, and recommended when people ask AI for options in its category.
Grounding is when an AI engine bases its answer on retrieved, real-world sources rather than relying only on its trained memory. Grounded answers cite the pages the model pulled from, often via live web search.