# Glossary of AI reputation and AI search terms
> Definitions of the terms used on this site: AI reputation, GEO, AEO, entity, knowledge graph, citation, share of voice and others, each linked to its guide.
- Page: https://mohammedteto.com/glossary/
- Language: en — French version: https://mohammedteto.com/fr/analyses/
- Author: Mohammed Teto (https://mohammedteto.com/#person)
- Published: 2026-10-07
- Updated: 2026-10-04
The terms of this field are recent and used loosely. These are the definitions this site works with. Where a definition rests on a source, the entry says whose it is, and the page it points to gives the link.
This glossary defines the terms used across the site, in the sense in which the site uses them. Each entry gives a definition in one or two sentences and, where a page treats the subject, points to it. Several of these terms have no settled definition in the profession; an entry here is a working definition, not a standard.
## Disciplines
### AI reputation {#ai-reputation}
What AI systems say about a person or an organization when asked, and the sources those answers are drawn from. See [what AI reputation is](https://mohammedteto.com/ai-reputation/).
### AI reputation management {#ai-reputation-management}
The work of keeping what AI systems say about a person or an organization accurate and well evidenced, by acting on narrative, entity, evidence and sources. It does not edit generated answers, which no one can do.
### AI visibility {#ai-visibility}
The extent to which a person or an organization appears, is described accurately and is cited in answers produced by AI systems. See [AI visibility](https://mohammedteto.com/ai-visibility/).
### Search engine optimization (SEO) {#seo}
The practice of making a page discoverable and competitive in search results.
### Answer engine optimization (AEO) {#aeo}
The practice of structuring content so that a search engine or an AI assistant can extract a clear, self-contained answer from it. See [answer engine optimization](https://mohammedteto.com/answer-engine-optimization/).
### Generative engine optimization (GEO) {#geo}
The practice of improving how often and how accurately content, and the entity behind it, is used and cited in answers written by generative systems. The term was introduced in a research paper published at KDD 2024. See [generative engine optimization](https://mohammedteto.com/generative-engine-optimization/).
### Entity optimization {#entity-optimization}
The work of making a person, an organization or a product unambiguous to search engines and AI systems. Also called entity SEO. See [entity optimization](https://mohammedteto.com/entity-optimization/).
### Online reputation management (ORM) {#orm}
Work on what people find when they search for a name: results, reviews, profiles and social content. Compared with AI reputation management in [this comparison](https://mohammedteto.com/compare/ai-reputation-vs-online-reputation-management/).
### Executive reputation management {#executive-reputation-management}
The discipline of keeping the public record of a leader accurate, consistent and well evidenced. See [executive reputation](https://mohammedteto.com/executive-reputation/).
### Brand authority {#brand-authority}
The degree to which a brand is trusted as a source on its subject, as shown by evidence and by independent confirmation. Distinct from awareness. See [brand authority](https://mohammedteto.com/brand-authority/).
## Entities and structured data
### Entity {#entity}
A thing a system can identify and distinguish from every other: a person, an organization, a product, a place. A keyword is a string; an entity is what the string refers to.
### Entity confusion {#entity-confusion}
The attribution to one entity of facts that belong to another, or the splitting of one entity into several. See [confused with someone else](https://mohammedteto.com/problems/entity-confusion/).
### Reference version {#reference-version}
The single statement of an entity's facts, held by the entity, with which every other profile and page is aligned.
### Knowledge graph {#knowledge-graph}
A database of entities, facts about them and relationships between them. Google describes its own as a database of billions of facts about people, places and things. See [knowledge graph strategy](https://mohammedteto.com/knowledge-graph-strategy/).
### Knowledge panel {#knowledge-panel}
The box Google may display for a search about an entity. Google states that panels are generated automatically, and that the entity or its representative can claim one and suggest changes.
### Structured data {#structured-data}
In Google's words, a standardized format for providing information about a page and classifying the page content. See [structured data for entities](https://mohammedteto.com/structured-data-entity-schema/).
### Schema.org {#schema-org}
The shared vocabulary of types and properties, such as Person and Organization, which Google says most Search structured data uses.
### JSON-LD {#json-ld}
A JSON-based format for structured data. It is one of the three formats Google supports, and the one it recommends in most cases as the easiest to implement and maintain.
### sameAs {#sameas}
A schema.org property defined as the URL of a reference web page that unambiguously indicates the item's identity. It links an entity described on one page to the same entity described elsewhere.
## Sources and citations
### Source {#source}
Any page or record from which a search engine or an AI system can take information about an entity.
### Citation {#citation}
A source that an AI-generated answer names or links to. A source can be used without being cited. See [a source used and a source cited](https://mohammedteto.com/source-citation-authority/#used-vs-cited).
### Owned source {#owned-source}
A source the entity controls: its site, its official biography, its company pages.
### Managed source {#managed-source}
A profile or listing the entity fills in within a platform's format, such as a professional or directory profile.
### Commercial source {#commercial-source}
A page that exists because someone paid for it: a paid placement, a sponsored profile, a reposted press release. It shows that a statement was made, and little about whether it is confirmed.
### Independent source {#independent-source}
A source the entity does not control and did not pay for: a register, a reference work, editorial coverage.
### Corroboration {#corroboration}
The confirmation of a claim by a source other than the one that made it. A claim repeated only by its author is not corroborated.
### Source authority {#source-authority}
The weight a source carries in what search engines and AI systems say about a subject. The sources cited on this site do not explain how that weight is assigned. See [source and citation authority](https://mohammedteto.com/source-citation-authority/).
### E-E-A-T {#e-e-a-t}
Experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness: the qualities Google says its systems try to reward. Google states that E-E-A-T itself is not a specific ranking factor and that trust is the most important of the four. See [what Google says about trust](https://mohammedteto.com/brand-authority/#trust).
## Engines and access
### Generative engine {#generative-engine}
A system that answers a query by synthesizing information from several sources and writing a response with a language model. The definition is paraphrased from the paper which introduced the term GEO.
### AI Overviews {#ai-overviews}
A Google Search feature that shows a generated answer with supporting links. See [Google AI Overviews](https://mohammedteto.com/platforms/google-ai-overviews/).
### AI Mode {#ai-mode}
A Google Search feature for generated answers with follow-up questions. See [Google AI Mode](https://mohammedteto.com/platforms/google-ai-mode/).
### Query fan-out {#query-fan-out}
Google's name for a technique in which AI Overviews and AI Mode may issue multiple related searches across subtopics and data sources to develop a response. Third parties also use the term for the searches other assistants run.
### Answer engine {#answer-engine}
A search engine or an assistant that returns a response and not a list of results.
### Featured snippet {#featured-snippet}
A search result in which Google shows the descriptive snippet first. Google states that a page cannot be marked as one; its systems decide.
### Crawler {#crawler}
A program that fetches pages for a search engine or an AI provider. Providers publish the names of theirs and what each is used for. See [Platforms](https://mohammedteto.com/platforms/).
### User agent {#user-agent}
The name under which a crawler identifies itself, and by which a robots.txt rule addresses it.
### robots.txt {#robots-txt}
The file in which a site tells crawlers what they may fetch. Rules are set per crawler, which is why blocking one does not block another.
### llms.txt {#llms-txt}
A proposed convention for presenting a site's content to language models. Google states that no AI text file is needed to appear in its AI features.
## Measurement
### Prompt {#prompt}
The question put to an AI system. In measurement, a prompt is fixed word for word.
### Prompt family {#prompt-family}
A group of prompts that ask the same kind of question: identity, category, comparison, use case.
### Prompt set {#prompt-set}
The fixed, versioned list of prompts used for a measurement. See the [prompt library](https://mohammedteto.com/research/prompt-library/).
### Run {#run}
One execution of one prompt in one engine, recorded with its conditions. Because answers vary, a prompt is run more than once.
### Control {#control}
An organization with well-established facts, included in a prompt set to check the engine and the conditions.
### Mention {#mention}
The naming of an entity in the text of an answer, whether or not a source is cited for it.
### Baseline {#baseline}
The first dated record of what search engines and AI systems say about an entity, against which later readings are compared.
### Presence {#presence}
The share of runs, across a prompt set, in which an entity is named.
### Accuracy {#accuracy}
Whether the facts an answer states about an entity match its reference version.
### Consistency {#consistency}
Whether a description holds across engines, languages and runs. It does not say which version is right.
### AI share of voice {#ai-share-of-voice}
Of all brand mentions in AI answers to a defined set of category prompts, the proportion that go to one brand among those tracked. See [AI share of voice](https://mohammedteto.com/ai-share-of-voice/).
### Position-adjusted word count {#position-adjusted-word-count}
A research metric from the GEO paper: the share of an answer's words tied to a source, weighted by how early they appear.
### AI search intelligence {#ai-search-intelligence}
The measurement of how an entity appears in AI answers: presence, accuracy, sources cited and others named. See [AI search intelligence](https://mohammedteto.com/ai-search-intelligence/).
## How these definitions are maintained
A definition changes when the source it rests on changes, or when usage on this site changes. Changes are dated in the [change log](https://mohammedteto.com/research/change-log/). The rules under which measurements are made and published are in the [methodology](https://mohammedteto.com/research/methodology/), and both belong to [Research](https://mohammedteto.com/research/). The framework in which these terms are used is [The Authority Architecture System](https://mohammedteto.com/method/).
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