Top key terms for AI SEO in 2026

With 2025 coming to an end, one thing has become clear, AI revolution is already here and the new terminology that it brings can be overwhelming.

Here is the list of essential, top key terms for AI SEO in 2026 that every marketer and SEO expert should know.

SEO vs SEOx (Search Everywhere Optimisation)

While the main focus for Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is ranking high on search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo, using keyworks, backlinks and technical optimisation, Search Everywhere Optimisation (SEOx) expands this focus field to most discovery platforms including social media (TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, etc.), video (YouTube), AI (ChatGTP, Claude, Perplexity), voice (Siri) and marketplaces (Amazon, eBay, etc.). This is done by tailoring content to address platform specific algorithms and user behaviours.

GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation)

GEO is a process/set of techniques for optimising your owned channels (mostly website) to increase its visibility in generative AI search engines, such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews. We may look at it as an evolution of SEO for AI age.

AEO (Answer Engine Optimisation)

While very similar to SEO and GEO, AEO is a process of getting your brand/service/website discovered in AI-driven search engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, MS Copilot. Most common methods include content optimisation, schema markup and backlink strategies.

SERP (Search Engine Results Page)

SERP is the page that search engine generates after you input your search query. Depending on search engine used, SERP will contain a mix of organic links, paid ads, images, videos and special features. AI Overviews are now a core component off the modern Search Engine Results Page.

LLM (Large Language Model)

LLM is a machine learning model that is trained on vast amounts of data. LLMs can recognise, translate, summarise, predict and generate content. LLMs work as a large statistical prediction machine that is extremely good at predicting next word (token) in the sequence, based on internal patterns learned during training stages.

AI Visibility

AI Visibility is a relatively new metric used to describe how well your brand, product or service shows up or how accurately it is represented in AI-powered search engines (Google AI Overviews) or AI tools (ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity). How often it is cited, mentioned or recommended in AI-generated answers.

Zero-click Results

Zero-click results is a scenario where search engine (Google) provide answer to visitor’s search directly on the SERP, using features like AI Overviews, Knowledge Panels or Featured Snippets. This in turn removes the need for user click on search results, since search intent has been addressed.

CTR (Clik-through Rate)

CTR is yet another digital marketing metric that represent percentage of impressions that become clicks. AI-generated search results significantly decrease CTR for organic links.

SOV (Share of Voice)

Share of Voice is a key indicator of brand awareness and authoritativeness. It is a measure of how well your brand is positioned in AI-generated answers (Google AI Overviews, ChtGPT) compared to competitors.

Prompt

AI prompt is a question, command, text or instruction that user gives to an AI system to generate a specific response. A quality of prompt will always determine the quality of response.

👉 4 steps for a perfect AI prompt

Response (Prompt Response)

Prompt response is the output that AI system generates for user based on the prompt submitted. Although the most common formtat is text based, response can also be a media (image, video, sound). Response is likely to be different, even if initial prompt is the same.

Context (Prompt Context)

Prompt context is the practice of providing additional information to AI system to improve quality and consistency of AI behaviour and the response. Context can be specific set of instructions, background information, subject research, relevant documentation (brand guidelines, research, manuals, etc.), and anything else that will help LLM to better ‘understand’ you needs.

Citation

AI citation is when AI tools directly reference and backlink to your content as trusted source. The function is very similar to that of organic search backlinks.

Sentiment

Sentiment is the metric that assesses the ratio of positive to negative tone shared around your brand across publicly available sources of information (forums, review, press, social, AI generated content). This is important because AI models now factor emotional resonance into ranking decisions.

Mention

Brand mention is an instance where you brand is referenced online without a direct link. Mentions are important because they shape users association with your brand. Search engines use consider motions as a trust and authority signals.

AI Chatbot vs AI Agent

AI chatbots are reactive systems, designed to provide response to user queries based on predefined parameters, guidelines and rules. AI agents are proactive and autonomous systems. AI agents can make decisions, perform complex tasks, and take actions across multiple platforms without human oversight.

E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness)

E-E-A-T is Google’s quality framework for evaluating content quality and credibility. The main aim is to ensure search results are reliable and helpful.

Entity Mapping

Entity mapping is the process of identifying and connecting ‘real-world’ entities (people, places, concepts, products) across different data sources or within a system and identifying their relationships. This allows search engines and AI to understand meaning, context and structure.

Semantic Search

Semantic search focuses on understanding the intent, context and meaning behind a user’s search query, rather than just matching keywords. This leads to providing more accurate and relevant results and overall improved chatbot performance.

Query Fan-out

Query Fan-out is an advanced technique where AI system breaks single user query into multiple related sub-queries. This allows AI system to gather comprehensive information before generating a response. Understanding this process can help content creators improve visibility in AI-powered search.

Search Grounding

Search grounding refers to the practice of AI system using verified, external, confirmed source of information to crate response. This ensures that responses are up to date, trustworthy and based on verified information. This also prevents AI model from inventing information.

Schema Markup / Structured Data

Schema markup is code added to websites that helps search engines and AI-driven systems understand content structure, meaning, and relationship. In 2026 Schema Markup is critical for AI visibility, as it improves content trust and accuracy and will help to get your content to appear in rich results, voice search answers, AI chatbot responses and knowledge panels.

MD (Markdown)

Markdown is a lightweight markup language, with plain text formatting, which is a perfect match for AI models and CMSs, because of its clean, semantic content structure. Markdown is designed for readability and minimalism.

Tokenization

Tokenization is the process of breaking text into a smaller, manageable units (tokens) that AI models can process. Depending on the method used, tokens can represent words, parts of workd or a single characters. Buy understanding how tokenization works, can help to optimise prompt and reduce computational load.

Parasite SEO

Parasite SEO is a strategy of publishing your content on high-authority sources (LinkedIn, Quora, News sites, Medium), to benefit of their established authoritativeness in order to get your content to rank quickly and to drive traffic back to your site. This is a risky technique and now considered as a ‘site reputation abuse’.

LLM Sitemap (LLMs.txt)

LLMs.txt is a text file specifically designed to guide AI crawlers to your most important content. This is a simple Markdown file that is placed in root directory that acts as a map or LLMs.