---
title: "The AEO Glossary for People Who Learned Search in Google Ads"
description: "AEO terms translated for paid-search operators: prompts, gaps, mentions, citations, share of voice, bot fetches, and the difference between an AI Overview ad and a citation."
url: "https://groas.com/post/the-aeo-glossary-for-people-who-learned"
image: "https://pub-87da24ecbbfc4c3bad6875f3aa013712.r2.dev/generated-images/ab80f78a-262e-4a54-9dc3-fd9bb46d8c2d.png"
published: "2026-10-08T05:27:25.163Z"
modified: "2026-10-08T05:27:25.229Z"
---

October 8, 2026 · 10 min read

# The AEO Glossary for People Who Learned Search in Google Ads

[Alexander PerelmanHead Of Product @ groas](https://groas.com/author/alexander-perelman)

![A brass machine plate with 'KEYWORD' filed off and 'PROMPT' freshly stamped below, brass filings and a file beside it: old ad terms relabeled.](https://pub-87da24ecbbfc4c3bad6875f3aa013712.r2.dev/generated-images/ab80f78a-262e-4a54-9dc3-fd9bb46d8c2d.png)

In this article

1. [Prompt and prompt set](#prompt-and-prompt-set)
2. [Prompt gap and citation gap](#prompt-gap-and-citation-gap)
3. [Content gap vs entity gap](#content-gap-vs-entity-gap)
4. [Mention vs citation vs recommendation](#mention-vs-citation-vs-recommendation)
5. [Source, footnote and passage](#source-footnote-and-passage)
6. [AI Overview citation vs AI Overview ad](#ai-overview-citation-vs-ai-overview-ad)
7. [AI share of voice](#ai-share-of-voice)
8. [Answer variability](#answer-variability)
9. [Verified bot fetch, unverified hit and live-answer fetch](#verified-bot-fetch-unverified-hit-and-live-answer-fetch)
10. [Training crawl vs retrieval fetch](#training-crawl-vs-retrieval-fetch)
11. [Answer-first content, entity markup and llms.txt](#answer-first-content-entity-markup-and-llmstxt)
12. [Off-site authority and citation building](#off-site-authority-and-citation-building)
13. [AEO reporting mistakes](#aeo-reporting-mistakes)
14. [Visibility score](#visibility-score)

Open an AEO report and you may find a visibility score up 18 points, 212 mentions tracked, and a citation gap closed on 14 prompts. If you learned search inside a Google Ads account, the feeling is familiar: you have seen much of this before, under different names and sometimes with a higher invoice attached.

**Most AEO jargon is paid-search vocabulary with the serial numbers filed off.** A prompt resembles a keyword. AI share of voice borrows from impression share. A citation gap looks a lot like a search terms report showing where you failed to appear. Those comparisons are useful until someone treats the metrics as interchangeable. This glossary follows the terms you tend to meet in a pitch, then ends with the one I would retire.

## Prompt and prompt set

**Plain definition:** A prompt is a question someone enters into ChatGPT, Gemini, or an AI search experience; a prompt set is the fixed list of questions you track over time.

The PPC ancestor is obvious: prompt is keyword, prompt set is keyword list. The misuse starts when a vendor reports wins on questions no buyer would ask. A [checker that runs buyer prompts across answer engines](https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/best-aeo-checkers) helps only if those prompts sound like buyer language. My practical baseline is 25 to 40 real buyer questions run on ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and AI Overviews, repeated weekly for a month. **Choose the questions before you admire the chart.**

## Prompt gap and citation gap

**Plain definition:** A prompt gap is a buyer question where rivals get mentioned and you do not; a citation gap is a question where no URL from your domain appears as a source.

Think search terms report: here is the query, here is who showed up, and you were absent. The [gap taxonomy vendors use](https://www.freeseoauditservices.com/seo-news-reviews-articles/how-to-find-ai-visibility-gaps-before-rivals-do/) adds mention, source, and narrative gaps to the list. Those labels matter only if they lead to different work. I used to tell clients a gap meant writing a page. I was wrong often enough to change the rule. A mention gap can mean other sites explain you badly. A citation gap can mean your page gives the model nothing quotable. **Name the gap before you commission the fix.**

## Content gap vs entity gap

**Plain definition:** A content gap means you have no page that answers the question; an entity gap means the model does not clearly connect your business to the category.

I learned the difference the way most PPC people learn match types: by spending effort on the wrong one. A content gap calls for a direct answer on your site, in plain language, with a fact worth quoting. An entity gap sends you beyond your site. If [only 1% of sources cited by LLMs come from brand-owned sites](https://brand24.com/blog/how-to-measure-the-share-of-voice/), your page claiming you are the best plumber in Austin has plenty of competition from reviews, directories, and Reddit threads.

One missing appearance tells you little. Pattern-level tools, such as the [Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit drawing on 289M+ prompts](https://www.freeseoauditservices.com/seo-news-reviews-articles/how-to-find-ai-visibility-gaps-before-rivals-do/), aim to separate a persistent absence from run-to-run noise. Disappear across 50 related prompts in 40 markets and I would investigate an entity problem. Disappear on two and it might just be Tuesday. **Check the pattern before you rewrite the site.**

## Mention vs citation vs recommendation

**Plain definition:** A mention names your brand, a citation links to one of your URLs as a source, and a recommendation tells the reader to pick you.

You can earn one without the others. A [mention without a citation](https://netzender.com/aeo-mentions-vs-citations) can point to third-party pages that explain your brand more clearly than your own pages do. I have seen the pattern: plenty of names in answers, almost no links to the business, and cleaner facts on review pages.

Vendors express this as mention rate, the prompts where you are named divided by tracked prompts, and citation rate, runs with a link to your domain divided by total runs. [Both need a fixed prompt set, geography, and platform](https://netzender.com/aeo-mentions-vs-citations). Without those controls, you are reporting weather. **Ask for mentions and citations side by side.**

## Source, footnote and passage

**Plain definition:** The source is the page cited, the footnote is how the link appears, and the passage is the text that supports the answer.

In PPC terms, think landing page, displayed placement, and the words the reader actually sees. The analogy is not exact, which is why the distinction matters. [Bing’s AI Performance report warns that citation activity does not represent ranking, authority, clicks, or traffic](https://netzender.com/aeo-mentions-vs-citations). A footnote shows your page was used as a source in that answer. It does not show that anyone clicked. Treat every footnote as a number-one organic ranking and you can pay for wins you never received. **When a report shows a citation, ask which passage supported it.**

## AI Overview citation vs AI Overview ad

**Plain definition:** An AI Overview citation is a source link in the answer; an AI Overview ad is a paid placement labeled Sponsored that can appear above, below, or within it.

This is the confusion that costs money. [Ads can appear above, below, or within AI Overviews](https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/16297775?hl=en). Existing Text, Shopping, Local, and App ads can show above or below where Overviews are available; ads inside the answer have additional relevance conditions. [Google Ads Liaison has said ads appear either inside or around an Overview, not both at once](https://searchengineland.com/google-ai-overviews-where-ads-appear-456211). A report that blends a sponsored placement with a source citation mixes rent with ownership. **Separate paid appearance from earned sourcing before you discuss performance.**

The placement also has limits that pitches tend to skip:

- [Ads inside Overviews are available in English on mobile and desktop in 12 countries](https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/16297775?hl=en), including the US, Canada, Australia, and India. Sensitive verticals such as finance, healthcare, gambling, and politics are excluded.
- [You cannot target only AI Overviews or opt out of them](https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/16297775?hl=en). Google reports those ad impressions as Top Ads without a separate inside-the-answer view.
- The campaign levers remain familiar: [broad match or keywordless targeting through AI Max, Performance Max, Shopping, or Dynamic Search Ads, alongside Smart Bidding](https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/16297775?hl=en).

If an agency adds “AI Overview ad management” as a separate line item, ask which lever it pulls that your Search campaign does not already pull.

## AI share of voice

**Plain definition:** AI share of voice measures your brand’s mentions or citations against the total brand mentions in a tracked set of prompts.

[Brand24 describes that calculation](https://brand24.com/blog/how-to-measure-the-share-of-voice/). It resembles Google Ads impression share in purpose, but **the denominators are different**: eligible ad impressions are not the same thing as observed brand mentions in a chosen prompt set. To compare visibility across ChatGPT, Gemini, and Google AI Overviews, run the same buyer questions repeatedly on each and show the results separately.

Then ask what moved the share. With [brand-owned sites accounting for a small fraction of cited LLM sources](https://brand24.com/blog/how-to-measure-the-share-of-voice/), other people’s pages can affect your number. Share of voice may help track reputation across answers. It is a poor basis for an invoice on its own. **Keep the prompt set and the denominator in view.**

## Answer variability

**Plain definition:** Answer variability is the change you see when an AI system responds differently to the same prompt across runs.

Same question, different answer, different Tuesday. That drift is not automatically a tracking bug or evidence that your latest page worked. [LLMs can return different answers across runs](https://growthx.ai/blog/accuracy-vs-precision), so a move from 17% to 19% can be ordinary variation. I keep a rule from testing ad copy: never trust one run.

Vendors have plenty of reason to display the number. One [analysis of 5,699 share-of-voice mentions](https://brand24.com/blog/how-to-measure-the-share-of-voice/) found AI SOV discussion running 3.4 times larger than traditional SOV discussion. Popularity does not make a single reading reliable. **Repeat buyer questions before you call a movement lift.**

## Verified bot fetch, unverified hit and live-answer fetch

**Plain definition:** A verified bot fetch is a request you can identify in server logs, an unverified hit is a dashboard claim you cannot substantiate, and a live-answer fetch is a retrieval request associated with answering a user.

The mechanism lives in server logs, not in a colorful chart. [Logs can show distinct jobs](https://surfacedby.com/blog/nginx-logs-ai-traffic-vs-referral-traffic): live-retrieval agents such as ChatGPT-User and Claude-User, search-index crawlers such as OAI-SearchBot and Googlebot, and training crawlers such as GPTBot. I have seen reports sweep all three into “AI visibility.” That is like counting impressions, bot clicks, and view-throughs as conversions. **Ask which agent requested which page, and when.**

## Training crawl vs retrieval fetch

**Plain definition:** A training crawl gathers material for model training, while a retrieval fetch requests material for an answer being assembled now.

Only the second points to an immediate opportunity to appear in that answer. Even then, log interpretation has limits. [Gemini has no retrieval-specific user agent, and Googlebot hits cannot be cleanly split between Gemini and classic Search](https://surfacedby.com/blog/nginx-logs-ai-traffic-vs-referral-traffic). Say you spend $20k a month and a dashboard says Gemini traffic is up 40%. Ask how it knows. If the answer is a pile of Googlebot requests, **do not let index activity masquerade as demand.**

## Answer-first content, entity markup and llms.txt

**Plain definition:** Answer-first content gives the direct answer near the top of a page, entity markup labels facts with schema, and _llms.txt_ is a Markdown map of a site placed at `/llms.txt`.

The PPC translation: answer-first is ad copy that meets the query immediately, markup resembles a clean product feed, and _llms.txt_ is a sitemap built for a crawler that never asked for it. The file was [proposed in September 2024 as a Markdown map, not a blocking file or an established standard](https://www.coredna.com/blogs/llms-txt-do-you-need-it). [No major provider has committed to reading it for answers](https://www.coredna.com/blogs/llms-txt-do-you-need-it). One vendor found [0.1% of 60,000 bot visits touched it](https://www.coredna.com/blogs/llms-txt-do-you-need-it); another saw a similar skip pattern across 500 million events, with no link to more citations.

I have nothing against publishing one. It costs an afternoon. **I object when the file becomes the strategy.**

![A small paper footnote flag on a large sponsored ad brick](https://pub-87da24ecbbfc4c3bad6875f3aa013712.r2.dev/generated-images/269a2122-4d57-493e-bd36-dbfdd2d5dd79.png)

## Off-site authority and citation building

**Plain definition:** Off-site authority is what third parties say about you; citation building is work to make your business and its facts available on pages an answer might cite.

Think backlinks, but pay attention to the sentence around the link. Directories, review pages, trade press, comparison tables: the pages your buyer may trust over your homepage can also shape how an answer describes you. The practical sequence I use comes from [groas work on getting pages cited in AI Overviews](https://groas.com/post/how-to-get-cited-in-google-s-ai-overview): check crawling, rewrite the direct answer, clean up the HTML, then make a dated check to see whether the citation sticks. If third-party pages carry clearer facts than yours, fix your facts first. **Five more posts will not correct a review page misstating your pricing.**

## AEO reporting mistakes

**Plain definition:** AEO reporting mistakes happen when a report presents one kind of appearance or activity as evidence of another.

Read enough reports and the same five substitutions recur:

- **Mention as citation:** The answer names you but links elsewhere.
- **Citation as ranking:** A footnote becomes a claimed number-one position, though [citation activity is not ranking, authority, clicks, or traffic](https://netzender.com/aeo-mentions-vs-citations).
- **Ad as citation:** A sponsored appearance gets counted as earned visibility.
- **Index crawl as demand:** GPTBot or Googlebot requests get blended with live retrieval fetches.
- **Variation as lift:** A small score movement gets its own slide when [normal answer variability](https://growthx.ai/blog/accuracy-vs-precision) could explain it.

Each turns a distinction PPC operators already know—impression, click, conversion—into mush. **Ask what was actually observed before you pay for the next page of the report.**

## Visibility score

**Plain definition:** A visibility score is a vendor’s blended measure of appearances and prominence, calculated according to that vendor’s rules.

If I could retire one AEO term, this would be it. Not because measurement is useless, but because the label lets vendors skip the measurement. Prompt sets can be checked. [Share of voice can be recalculated](https://brand24.com/blog/how-to-measure-the-share-of-voice/). Fetches can be inspected in logs. A paid ad should not be passed off as a citation, even when [Google’s ad reporting does not break out every AI Overview placement](https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/16297775?hl=en).

A blended score tells you none of that on its own. It can move when the model changes its answer, rise while you are already winning, and still fail to identify the sentence worth fixing. I spent years watching Quality Score get used the same way in Google Ads: a diagnostic dressed up as a goal. **Keep the prompt. Keep the gap. Keep the citation. Retire the score, and spend the money on the passage that earns the next one.**

## Frequently Asked Questions

### What is a prompt in AEO and how should I choose which prompts to track?

A prompt is a question someone enters into ChatGPT, Gemini, or an AI search experience, and a prompt set is the fixed list of questions you track over time. A practical baseline is 25 to 40 real buyer questions run on ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and AI Overviews, repeated weekly for a month. Choose questions that sound like buyer language before admiring any chart.

### What is the difference between a prompt gap and a citation gap?

A prompt gap is a buyer question where rivals get mentioned and you do not, while a citation gap is a question where no URL from your domain appears as a source. A mention gap can mean other sites explain you badly, and a citation gap can mean your page gives the model nothing quotable. Name the gap before you commission the fix.

### How do I tell whether I have a content gap or an entity gap?

A content gap means you have no page that answers the question, so a direct answer on your site with a quotable fact is the fix. An entity gap means the model does not clearly connect your business to the category, which sends you beyond your site. Disappear across 50 related prompts in 40 markets and investigate an entity problem; disappear on two and it might just be Tuesday.

### What is the difference between a mention, a citation, and a recommendation in AI answers?

A mention names your brand, a citation links to one of your URLs as a source, and a recommendation tells the reader to pick you. Vendors express these as mention rate and citation rate, both of which need a fixed prompt set, geography, and platform to mean anything. Ask for mentions and citations side by side.

### Is an AI Overview ad the same thing as an AI Overview citation?

No. An AI Overview citation is a source link in the answer, while an AI Overview ad is a paid placement labeled Sponsored that can appear above, below, or within it. Ads inside Overviews are limited to English on mobile and desktop in 12 countries, you cannot target only AI Overviews or opt out of them, and a sponsored placement should never be counted as earned visibility.

### How is AI share of voice different from Google Ads impression share?

AI share of voice measures your brand's mentions or citations against total brand mentions in a tracked set of prompts. It resembles impression share in purpose, but the denominators differ: eligible ad impressions are not the same as observed brand mentions in a chosen prompt set. Run the same buyer questions on each platform and show the results separately.

### Why did my AI visibility score move when I didn't change anything?

LLMs can return different answers to the same prompt across runs, so a move from 17% to 19% can be ordinary answer variability rather than the effect of your latest page. Never trust one run. Repeat buyer questions before you call a movement lift.

### How can I tell whether AI bot traffic in my logs is real retrieval or just training crawls?

A training crawl gathers material for model training, while a retrieval fetch requests material for an answer being assembled now, and only the second is an immediate opportunity to appear in that answer. Server logs can distinguish agents like ChatGPT-User and Claude-User from index crawlers such as OAI-SearchBot and Googlebot, though Gemini has no retrieval-specific user agent, so Googlebot hits cannot be cleanly split between Gemini and classic Search.

## Pay For Results, Not For Hours

Businesses buy the outcome, agencies resell it, and groas answers for it either way.

[See If You Qualify](https://groas.typeform.com/to/xC1bQNUT)

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