Token
The unit an AI reads and writes in — roughly three quarters of a word. Models are priced and limited by tokens, which is why very long documents cost more and sometimes get truncated.
Related terms
LocalBusiness Schema
Organization markup with the details a local search needs — address, opening hours, service area, price range. What lets an assistant answer “is there one near me, and are they open now?”
Embedding
A way of turning text into numbers so a computer can tell that “web hosting” and “website server space” are about the same thing. It is what makes search by meaning possible rather than search by exact word.
E-E-A-T
Google’s shorthand for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trust — the qualities its raters look for. Not a score you can see, but a decent description of what makes content worth surfacing.
Conversational Search
Searching by asking a full question, often as a follow-up to a previous one, the way you would ask a person. It favours pages that answer plainly over pages stuffed with keywords.
AI Visibility
How often, and how accurately, AI assistants mention your business when someone asks about what you do. Unlike search rankings there is no official scoreboard, so it is measured by asking the assistants and by watching which crawlers visit.
AEO (Answer Engine Optimization)
Answer Engine Optimization is the work of becoming the source that answers a question rather than one of ten links offered. It matters because search increasingly replies with a written answer, and only one or two businesses get named inside it.