Search Intent
What somebody actually wants when they type a query: to learn, to compare, to buy, or to find a specific site. Matching it matters more than matching the words.
Related terms
Prompt Injection
An attack where hidden instructions in a web page or document trick an AI into ignoring its real orders. The reason a careful assistant treats page content as information, never as commands.
Topical Authority
Being recognised as a reliable source on a subject rather than on a single keyword, usually by covering it thoroughly and consistently. It is what makes a small site beat a bigger one in a narrow field.
Vector Search
Searching by meaning rather than by matching words. A page that never uses the phrase somebody typed can still be the best answer, and vector search is what finds it.
LLM (Large Language Model)
The kind of AI behind ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini. It is trained on an enormous amount of text and predicts what should come next, which is enough to answer questions, summarise, translate and write.
RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation)
A technique where the AI first searches a set of documents, then writes its answer from what it found. It is how assistants quote current information rather than whatever was in their training data.
Guardrails
The limits placed on what an AI may say or do — refusing certain requests, staying on topic, never inventing a price. Essential on anything customer-facing.