Short, plain definitions of the search and AI terms you will hear, and what each one means for your business.
SEO helps your pages rank in Google and Google Maps. GEO, which means generative engine optimization, helps AI tools such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity find your business, trust it and name it in their answers. Both start with a fast, clear website and facts that other sources confirm.
A link from another website to yours. Search engines treat links from trusted sites as a sign that your pages are worth reading.
What it means for you
A few links from respected sites help more than many from poor ones. Bought links can get a site penalized, so we never buy them.
The main address of a page, when the same page can be reached at more than one address. A canonical tag tells search engines which address to count.
What it means for you
Without it, search engines may split your ranking between copies of the same page. Every page should name its own address as the canonical one.
Your free listing on Google Search and Google Maps, with your address, opening hours, photos, services and reviews.
What it means for you
Keep every detail complete and correct. It is one of the main things Google looks at when it chooses which businesses to show for local searches.
Setting up a website so people in each country or language see the right version in search. The hreflang tag tells search engines which page is meant for which audience.
What it means for you
If you sell in more than one country, link each version to its twin. Then Google can show the UK page to UK visitors and the UAE page to UAE visitors.
A word or phrase people type into a search engine, such as “dentist in Whitefield” or “website cost in India”.
What it means for you
Good keywords use your buyers’ words, not your own names for your services. We start from how they search.
SEO for businesses that serve a local area. It decides who appears in Google Maps and in the map results when someone searches nearby.
What it means for you
For clinics, shops and service businesses, it is where many local customers first find you. It starts with a complete Google Business Profile and genuine reviews.
Creating many pages from a database, such as one page for each service in each city, to match very specific searches.
What it means for you
It works only when every page has real facts of its own. Thin, copied pages can drag down a whole site, so we build them only from real data.
Improving your website so it shows up higher in Google and other search engines when people search for what you sell.
What it means for you
More of the right people find you without you paying for each click. It usually takes months, so be wary of anyone who promises a page-one ranking.
Making the whole journey work, from the search result to the enquiry. It joins SEO with the design and message that turn visitors into customers.
What it means for you
Ranking is only half the job. Each page should answer the question, show the price and make the next step easy.
Writing short, direct answers to real questions, so search engines and voice assistants can quote them.
What it means for you
Put a clear answer of a few sentences right under each page’s main heading. That is the part that can be quoted.
Making your business easy for AI tools such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews to find, trust and name in their answers.
What it means for you
People now ask AI tools who to hire. GEO builds the clear facts, listings, reviews and mentions those tools rely on. No one can promise a mention, so results should be tracked, not guaranteed.
The AI-written summary Google shows at the top of some search results, with links to the sources it used.
What it means for you
Clear, original, well-sourced pages are easier for it to use. Being linked there can bring visitors, but not every search shows an overview.
RAG, short for retrieval-augmented generation, is when an AI tool looks things up on the web before it answers. It is more likely to repeat facts that several sources agree on.
What it means for you
Keep your business facts the same everywhere: your website, Google profile, LinkedIn and directories. When sources disagree, AI tools may leave you out or get you wrong.
A plain-text file at yourdomain.com/llms.txt that gives AI tools a short, clean summary of your business and your most important pages.
What it means for you
It is a proposed standard, not a ranking factor, and AI companies have not promised to use it. It costs little to publish and keeps your key facts in one place.
Visits that start in an AI answer can show up as referrals from the AI tool’s website, or as direct traffic when no source is passed on.
What it means for you
Check your analytics for referrals from chatgpt.com, perplexity.ai and gemini.google.com, and ask new customers how they found you.
A search where the person gets the answer on the results page, or from an AI tool, and never visits a website.
What it means for you
Some questions will not send you visitors. Aim to be named in the answer, and give people a reason to visit, such as a price list, a calculator or a free audit.
Pages that are the same, or nearly the same, as other pages on your site or elsewhere. Search engines try to spot them and usually show only one.
What it means for you
Do not copy text between pages, and do not change only the date to make a page look fresh. When you refresh a page, update the facts and the substance.
Headings label the parts of a page. One H1 names the page, and H2 and H3 headings split it into clear sections.
What it means for you
Use one H1 per page and write headings as the questions or topics people search for. Clear headings help readers, search engines and AI tools find the right section.
How much new, useful information a page adds compared with what is already published on the topic.
What it means for you
Add something others do not have: your own data, real examples, prices or a clear opinion. Repeating what ten other pages already say gives search engines little reason to pick yours.
How well a site covers a whole subject, not just one keyword. A main page linked to several detailed pages on related questions is the usual way to show it.
What it means for you
Pick the subjects you want to be known for and cover them in depth, with internal links tying the pages together.
Google’s measures of page experience: how fast the main content loads (LCP), how stable the layout is (CLS), and how quickly the page responds to taps and clicks (INP).
What it means for you
Slow or jumpy pages lose visitors and can hold back rankings. Test on a real phone and fix the biggest delays first.
Shops and listings with filters can create thousands of near-identical page addresses. Crawlers can waste their time on these and miss your important pages.
What it means for you
Decide which filtered pages deserve to be found, and keep search engines out of the rest with canonical tags or robots rules.
A free protocol, supported by Microsoft Bing, Yandex and some other search engines, that lets a site tell them straight away when a page is added, changed or removed.
What it means for you
New and updated pages can be picked up sooner by the engines that support it. Check which ones do, and keep your sitemap up to date as well.
Reading your server’s access logs to see which pages Googlebot, AI crawlers and other bots really request, and which ones return errors.
What it means for you
It shows what search and AI crawlers actually see, including pages they skip and errors you did not know about.
Building the full page on the server, so visitors and search bots get finished HTML straight away instead of waiting for scripts to build it in the browser.
What it means for you
Pages that depend on scripts to show their text can be slow to index, and some crawlers may miss them. Public pages should arrive complete.
A soft 404 is a page that says “not found”, or is nearly empty, but still tells search engines it is fine. Thin pages have too little useful content to help anyone.
What it means for you
Merge, improve or remove them, and redirect old addresses properly. A site full of empty pages can look low quality.
A browser feature that loads the page a visitor is likely to open next, in the background, so it appears instantly when they click.
What it means for you
It can make key journeys, such as service page to pricing to contact, feel instant on supported browsers. Use it on a few high-value links.
Experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness: the qualities Google asks its quality reviewers to look for in content and in the people and companies behind it. It is a guide, not a single score.
What it means for you
Show who wrote each page, what they have done and where the facts come from. Real client work and honest claims build trust.
An entity is a specific business, person or place that search engines recognize. Disambiguation is telling it apart from others with a similar name.
What it means for you
Use your full legal name, address and official profile links on your site, so search engines do not confuse you with another business.
A database of facts about people, businesses and things, and how they connect. Google and AI tools use these to understand who you are.
What it means for you
State your facts plainly and the same way everywhere, and add structured data to your site, so you are a clear entry in their picture of the world.
NAP is name, address and phone number. Consistency means writing them the same way everywhere they appear online.
What it means for you
Small differences, such as “Rd” and “Road” or an old phone number, can confuse Google and weaken your local ranking. Check your website, Google profile and directories.
A line of structured data that points to your official profiles elsewhere, such as LinkedIn, Wikidata or Crunchbase, to say that they describe the same business.
What it means for you
Link only to profiles that are really yours, or to well-established records about you. Never point to pages that are not yours.
Code added to a page that labels its facts for machines, such as your business name, prices, reviews, and questions and answers.
What it means for you
It helps search engines and AI tools read your page correctly, and it can help results show extra details. It does not replace good content.
An AI agent is software that completes tasks for a person, such as comparing prices or booking. MCP, the Model Context Protocol, is an open standard that lets AI tools connect to data and apps.
What it means for you
Make your prices, services and booking details easy for software to read. Published prices and clean structured data are a good start.
A hallucination is when an AI tool states something wrong with confidence, such as an old price, a wrong address or a service you do not offer.
What it means for you
Ask the main AI tools about your business every month. Fix wrong answers at the source by correcting your listings and publishing clear, current facts.
AI tools split pages into short chunks, and they can only read a limited amount of text at a time. That limit is called the context window.
What it means for you
Give every section its own clear heading and keep each point short, so a chunk still makes sense on its own when an AI tool quotes it.
Tokens are the small pieces of text an AI reads. Every tool can handle only so many at once, and long, cluttered pages use up that room.
What it means for you
Keep pages light and put the key facts near the top, so they are not lost among menus, scripts and filler.
AI tools turn text into lists of numbers called embeddings. They compare those lists to find content that means the same as a question, even when the words are different.
What it means for you
Write the way your buyers ask, and keep each page on one clear subject. Focused pages are easier for AI search to match to a question.
FAQ
Not answered here? Ask us directly.
SEO helps your pages rank on Google. GEO helps AI tools such as ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini find your business, trust it and name it in their answers.
GEO builds on SEO, so good SEO is the right start. GEO adds the checks AI tools care about: the same facts everywhere online, clear answers on your pages, and tracking of what AI tools say about you.
AEO, or answer engine optimization, means writing short, direct answers to real questions, so Google snippets and voice assistants can quote your pages. It overlaps with both SEO and GEO.
Every project starts with a free audit of your site speed, your structured data and how AI tools describe you. We fix the biggest problems first and report every month.
Yes. The free audit lists what is holding you back in search and AI answers. The written plan is yours to keep, with no obligation.
Free audit
“Families traveling from rural districts can now read about conditions in Telugu before visiting Kurnool, and booking an appointment on their phone is effortless. WebMarv's engineering gave our practice a digital foundation we can trust.”
Dr. Swetha Rampally·Consultant Pediatric Neurologist, Dr. Rampally's Child Neuro Care
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