AI visibility glossary

llms.txt is a plain-text Markdown file at the root of a website (/llms.txt) that tells AI systems what the site is and links its most useful pages, each with a one-line summary. It is a proposed convention published at llmstxt.org, not a standard every engine has committed to read.

Why it matters for a local business: It is the cheapest way to state your services, prices, data, and answers in one place a machine can read without guessing. A companion llms-full.txt can carry the full text.

llms.txt and AI crawler accessSource: llmstxt.org

Generative engine optimization is the work of making a business findable, quotable, and correctly described in answers written by AI engines such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Claude. Where SEO aims at a position in a list of links, GEO aims at being named or cited inside the answer itself.

Why it matters for a local business: A homeowner who asks an assistant for a contractor sees a few names, not a page of results. GEO is the work of being one of those names, and it is measured by how often the answers name you.

What is generative engine optimization?

Answer engine optimization is an older, overlapping name for shaping content so that a system answering a question directly, such as a featured snippet, a voice assistant, or an AI engine, uses it as the answer. Today it is often used interchangeably with GEO.

Why it matters for a local business: The label matters less than the work behind it: pages that answer one customer question plainly, with specific facts the engine can lift.

What is generative engine optimization?

AI share of voice is a business's share of all the business mentions in a set of AI answers. CiteMy counts each answer that names or cites a business once, and divides that business's count by the total across every business named or cited in the same answers.

Why it matters for a local business: One answer is an anecdote; share of voice over a fixed set of questions, asked every week, is a trend you can move and check.

How we measure

AI Overviews are the AI-written summaries Google shows at the top of some search results, with links to the pages behind them. AI Mode is Google's fuller conversational search built on the same approach. Google says a page needs no special markup to appear in either: it must be indexed and eligible to show in Google Search with a snippet.

Why it matters for a local business: For Google's AI answers, the foundation is ordinary Google indexing and an accurate Business Profile.

Show up in Perplexity and Gemini answersSource: Google Search Central: AI features

Grounding is an AI engine basing its answer on sources it retrieves at the time of the question, such as live web search results, rather than only on what the model learned in training. A grounded answer can link the pages it used.

Why it matters for a local business: Local recommendations need current facts, so the engines ground them in search. That makes your crawlable pages and listings, not the model's training data, what decides whether you are named.

How the AI engines find local businesses

A citation is a link an AI engine shows with its answer, pointing at a page it used. A business is cited when a page on its own website is one of those links.

Why it matters for a local business: A citation is the clearest outside evidence of what an engine read, and it can send the customer straight to your site. Not every answer shows citations, so it is not the whole picture.

Which websites AI assistants cite

A business is mentioned, or named, when an AI answer includes its name anywhere, in any light, whether or not the answer links its website.

Why it matters for a local business: Most answers name more businesses than they link. Counting names as well as links shows where you stand even when the engine does not show its sources.

A business is recommended when an AI answer presents it as a pick: in a list of options, as a top choice, or as an explicit suggestion. A passing, negative, or "avoid" mention is a mention, not a recommendation.

Why it matters for a local business: Being recommended is what brings in work, and it is harder than being named. We count it separately for that reason.

How to get recommended by ChatGPT

OAI-SearchBot is OpenAI's crawler for ChatGPT's search features. OpenAI says sites that opt out of it are not shown in ChatGPT search answers, though they can still appear as navigational links.

Why it matters for a local business: If your robots.txt or firewall blocks it, ChatGPT search cannot show your site. Allow it.

Source: OpenAI: Overview of OpenAI crawlers

GPTBot is OpenAI's crawler for content that may be used to train its models. OpenAI controls it separately from OAI-SearchBot, so a site can block GPTBot and still appear in ChatGPT search.

Why it matters for a local business: Blocking training is a separate decision from being findable. Many sites block GPTBot by accident while meaning to allow search, or the reverse.

Source: OpenAI: Overview of OpenAI crawlers

ClaudeBot is Anthropic's crawler for web content that could contribute to training its models. Anthropic runs a separate search crawler, Claude-SearchBot, and a separate agent for fetches a user asks for, Claude-User; blocking Claude-SearchBot may reduce a site's visibility in Claude's search results.

Why it matters for a local business: As with OpenAI, you can decline training and still allow search. Check that Claude-SearchBot is allowed.

Source: Anthropic: crawler documentation

PerplexityBot is Perplexity's crawler for surfacing and linking websites in its search results. Perplexity says it is not used to crawl content for training AI foundation models.

Why it matters for a local business: Blocking it makes your site hard for Perplexity to cite. Allowing it is a decision about appearing in Perplexity's answers, not about training.

Show up in Perplexity and Gemini answersSource: Perplexity: Perplexity crawlers

Google-Extended is a robots.txt token, not a separate crawler, that lets a site decide whether content Google crawls may be used to train future Gemini models and for grounding in some Gemini products. Google says it does not affect a site's inclusion in Google Search and is not a ranking signal.

Why it matters for a local business: Blocking Google-Extended does not remove you from Google Search. It is a training and Gemini-grounding choice, so make it on purpose.

Source: Google: common crawlers

schema.org is a shared vocabulary for describing things on the web, such as a business, a service, an offer, or a dataset, in a form machines can read. JSON-LD is the most common way to add it to a page: a block of structured data in a script tag that states the same facts the page shows.

Why it matters for a local business: It is the clearest way to state your prices, service areas, warranties, and specs without leaving a machine to guess. Keep it consistent with what the page says.

Structured data for AI visibilitySource: schema.org

An entity is one real thing, such as a business, a person, or a place, that search and AI systems try to recognize as the same thing wherever it appears. A business's website, Business Profile, and directory listings should all resolve to one entity.

Why it matters for a local business: If the engines cannot tell that your site and your listings describe the same business, they split or confuse what they know about you. One schema.org node with a stable @id helps them join it up.

Structured data for AI visibility

sameAs is the schema.org property that links an entity to its other profiles on the web, such as its Google Business Profile, Yelp, BBB, LinkedIn, or Wikidata pages, stating that they describe the same thing.

Why it matters for a local business: It tells an engine which listings are yours, so their reviews and facts add up to one business.

Source: schema.org/sameAs

NAP stands for name, address, and phone number, the core facts that identify a local business. NAP consistency means those facts read the same on the business's website and on every listing.

Why it matters for a local business: Conflicting phone numbers or addresses make engines unsure which details are right. Before merging a second listing, check whether it is a separate line of business on purpose.

A first-party dataset is data a business publishes from its own records, such as what jobs cost, how long they take, or which parts fail and when, as a table with Dataset markup and a CSV or JSON download.

Why it matters for a local business: It answers your customers' questions with numbers only you have, which is the kind of source an engine can quote. Most businesses, and most agencies, have never built one.

CiteMy's own datasets

A prompt panel is a fixed set of questions customers ask, put to AI engines on a schedule, several times each, so the answers can be compared week to week.

Why it matters for a local business: AI answers change from one ask to the next. A fixed panel turns a handful of anecdotes into a measurement you can track.

How we measure