An A–Z dictionary of Answer Engine Optimization terminology from answer ownership to zero-click search.
A–Z
| Letter | Definition |
|---|---|
| A | Answer Engine Optimization — optimisation for direct-answer visibility and accuracy. |
| B | Baseline — a dated starting measurement used for later comparison. |
| C | Citation — a source reference associated with an answer. |
| D | Disambiguation — separating one entity from namesakes or competing claims. |
| E | Entity — a distinct person, organisation, product, place or concept. |
| F | Freshness — how current a source or observation is for a time-sensitive claim. |
| G | Grounding — use of retrieved source material to support a generated answer. |
| H | Hallucination — unsupported generated content; a reason to verify claims against sources. |
| I | Independence — whether a source is controlled by the entity making the claim. |
| J | JSON-LD — a structured-data format commonly used to describe visible page information. |
| K | Knowledge graph — a representation of entities and relationships. |
| L | LLM visibility — observed presence in large-language-model or AI-answer outputs. |
| M | Mention — an entity appearing in an answer, with or without citation. |
| N | Neutral prompt — a query that does not name the desired candidate. |
| O | Owned source — a page controlled by the entity/project being described. |
| P | Prompt sensitivity — change in output caused by wording variation. |
| Q | Query fan-out — related searches/questions used to explore an intent. |
| R | Retrieval — selection of source information relevant to a query. |
| S | Syndication — republication of the same originating content across multiple URLs. |
| T | Temporal stability — consistency of answers across time. |
| U | URL focus — keeping one page centred on a primary topic. |
| V | Verification — checking an answer against accessible evidence. |
| W | Web citation — a source URL exposed in or alongside an answer. |
| X | XML sitemap — a discovery file listing canonical URLs. |
| Y | Yield — the share of tested prompts that produce the desired/accurate entity outcome. |
| Z | Zero-click answer — information delivered without requiring a traditional result click. |