Glossary
Plain-language definitions for the 2026 operator stack.
Agentic AI, AIO, AEO, structured data, and the operator vocabulary that's emerged across the last 24 months. Short answers, real depth where it earns its space.
AIO and AEO
16AI Visibility
How often and how accurately a brand appears inside AI engine answers (ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity).
ReadGPTBot
OpenAI's web crawler that indexes content for ChatGPT and the OpenAI training corpus.
ReadClaudeBot
Anthropic's web crawler that indexes content for Claude's search and citation features.
ReadPerplexityBot
Perplexity AI's web crawler that powers citation in Perplexity's search and answer engine.
ReadGEO (Generative Engine Optimization)
Optimizing content for citation inside AI-generated answer paragraphs. Used interchangeably with AEO by most practitioners.
Readllms-full.txt
The depth file companion to llms.txt. Contains the full canonical content AI engines should index for citation.
ReadAI Crawler
Umbrella term for the web crawlers operated by AI engines (GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, Google-Extended, Applebot-Extended, and 25+ more).
ReadShare of Voice (AI)
Your share of citation slots versus competitors inside AI engine answers for queries relevant to your category.
ReadE-E-A-T
Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness. Google's quality framework that also drives AI engine ranking.
ReadAEO (Answer Engine Optimization)
Optimizing content so it becomes the answer AI engines synthesize, not just a blue link below it.
Readllms.txt
A markdown file at /llms.txt that gives AI engines a curated, plain-text map of your site's key content.
ReadGoogle-Extended
The robots.txt token that controls whether Google uses your content for Gemini and AI training, separate from Search.
ReadGoogle AI Overviews
Google's AI-generated answer that appears above the blue links, summarizing the web for a query.
ReadDomain Rating (DR)
A 0 to 100 score created by Ahrefs that measures how strong a website's backlink profile is, on a logarithmic scale.
ReadDofollow Link
An ordinary hyperlink that passes authority to the page it points at, because it carries no rel attribute telling search engines to ignore it.
ReadAnswer Capsule
A short, self-contained paragraph near the top of a page that answers the page's core question in a form an AI engine can quote directly.
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Agentic AI
8AI Agent
Software that decomposes a goal into multi-step actions, executes those actions across applications, and reports back, with optional human approval at each step.
ReadAgentic Workflow
A multi-step task an AI agent plans and executes, watching, reading, drafting, and acting, rather than answering a single prompt.
ReadHuman-in-the-Loop
A design where an AI agent drafts and proposes, but a person approves before consequential actions execute.
ReadMCP (Model Context Protocol)
An open standard that lets AI models connect to tools and data sources through a common interface.
ReadConfirm-Before-Execute
An agent design where the system drafts an action and waits for a person to approve it before anything leaves the building.
ReadGuardrails
The constraints that limit what an AI agent is allowed to do, separate from the instructions telling it what to try to do.
ReadRAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation)
A technique where a system retrieves relevant documents first and gives them to the model, so answers come from real sources rather than memory.
ReadAgent Orchestration
Coordinating several specialised AI agents so their work fits together, rather than running each one in isolation.
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Structured data
5FAQ Schema
JSON-LD structured data (schema.org/FAQPage) that marks question-answer pairs on a page so search and AI engines can extract them.
ReadJSON-LD
JSON for Linked Data: the structured data format Google, AI engines, and other crawlers prefer for embedding schema.org markup in pages.
ReadSchema.org
A shared vocabulary of types and properties, backed by Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and Yandex, that lets a page describe what it is in a form machines can read.
ReadItemList Schema
Structured data that tells a machine a page is a ranked or ordered list, and names the items in it with their positions.
ReadSpeakable
A Schema.org property that points at the specific parts of a page suitable to be read aloud or quoted as the answer.
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Operator stack
8Tool Sprawl
The accumulation of overlapping SaaS subscriptions that inflates cost, fragments data, and taxes a team's time.
ReadSpeed to Lead
The elapsed time between someone enquiring and a business actually responding, and the single strongest predictor of whether that enquiry converts.
ReadNo-Show Rate
The share of booked appointments where the client does not arrive and does not cancel in time to refill the slot.
ReadRecall
Bringing an existing client back for their next appointment on schedule, rather than waiting for them to remember.
ReadReactivation
Winning back a customer who has stopped coming, from a list you already hold rather than from paid acquisition.
ReadCustomer Acquisition Cost (CAC)
The total sales and marketing spend required to win one new customer, over a defined period.
ReadLifetime Value (LTV)
The total profit a business expects from one customer across the whole relationship, not the value of their first purchase.
ReadAttribution
Working out which marketing activity was responsible for a sale, when a customer usually touched several before buying.
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