AI, SEO and software glossary

AI agent

A software system that uses a model, instructions, context and tools to pursue a defined task through one or more steps.

AI chatbot

A conversational application that interprets user messages and returns information, guidance or actions through natural-language interaction.

Answer engine optimization (AEO)

The practice of improving content and technical signals so answer systems can discover, understand and use a source when responding to a question. It builds on SEO rather than replacing it.

Artificial intelligence (AI)

Software techniques that perform tasks commonly associated with human intelligence, such as language understanding, prediction, perception, planning and decision support.

Canonical URL

The preferred URL for a page when the same or substantially similar content can be reached through multiple addresses.

Core Web Vitals

Google metrics for loading performance, interaction responsiveness and visual stability, commonly represented by LCP, INP and CLS.

Embeddings

Numeric representations used to compare semantic similarity between text, images or other data. They are commonly used in vector search and RAG systems.

Entity SEO

Improving the consistency and clarity of people, organizations, products, services and relationships across a website and trusted external sources.

Fine-tuning

Additional model training on examples intended to adapt behavior or task performance. It is different from retrieving current facts at request time.

Generative engine optimization (GEO)

A common industry term for improving visibility in generative search and AI-generated answers through useful content, clear entities, crawlability, authority and measurement.

Human-in-the-loop

A design in which people review, approve, correct or supervise model outputs or automated actions at appropriate points.

IndexNow

A protocol that lets a website notify participating search engines when URLs are added, changed or removed.

Large language model (LLM)

A machine-learning model trained to process and generate language and often other modalities. Applications add prompts, retrieval, tools, permissions and evaluation around the model.

Model evaluation

A repeatable process for testing an AI system against representative examples and metrics such as task success, groundedness, safety, latency and cost.

Retrieval-augmented generation (RAG)

An architecture that retrieves relevant information from approved sources and supplies it to a generative model to produce a more grounded response.

Schema.org

A shared vocabulary for structured data used to describe organizations, people, services, articles, jobs, breadcrumbs and many other entities on the web.

Search intent

The underlying task or question a person is trying to complete with a search, such as learning, comparing, finding a company or requesting a service.

Structured data

Machine-readable markup that describes entities and page content using a vocabulary such as Schema.org. It should match information visible to users.

Topical authority

A search-marketing concept describing the breadth, depth, quality and interconnection of useful content around a subject. It is not a formal score published by a search engine.

Vector database

A database or search index optimized to store and retrieve embedding vectors, often alongside metadata and access controls.