AI search glossary

Understanding AI search in a business context

AI search terms describe generated answers, provider crawlers, and ways of observing citations. Documented platform behavior belongs apart from experimental optimization claims. The same provider can operate separate crawlers for training, search discovery, and user-requested fetching, so a single bot label is not a complete access policy.

Using these definitions in your workflow

Check the named provider’s current documentation before editing crawler rules. For a visibility study, preserve the prompt and the resulting answer with the date and test conditions. Experimental samples can suggest patterns, but a repeated prompt is not a census of how every customer encounters your business.

A contractor can publish accurate service information and keep useful pages crawlable without claiming a guaranteed generated-answer citation. Documented Google guidance does not require a special AI file for its search features. If you test a proposed file format, record it as an experiment and preserve the ordinary website experience.

Checking the evidence behind a report

Record which provider fetched a resource and why that provider says it crawls. A documented training control does not necessarily control a separate search crawler, and a user-requested fetch may have another policy. Keep that provider-specific distinction in the access decision.

Experimental visibility tracking should also preserve whether the system cited your page, merely named your company, or described another business with a similar name. Those observations require different corrections and should not be collapsed into one unexplained visibility score.

For practical context, use the matching website tool and compare the task with our service scope. Return to the full SEO glossary when the report uses terms from another topic.

Terms in this topic

Each entry below introduces a distinct concept. Open its explanation for the practical procedure and cautions. These definitions describe terminology, not a ranking guarantee. Check the original documentation when a report’s wording or a platform feature changes.

• AI Overviews

  AI Overviews are Google's generated summaries shown for some searches. Documented Google guidance says ordinary SEO foundations apply; additional special markup is not required for eligibility.

• GPTBot

  GPTBot is OpenAI's crawler for content that may be used to improve its models. Documented OpenAI guidance separates it from its search crawler and from user-initiated fetches.

• llms.txt

  Llms.txt is an experimental proposal for a Markdown file summarizing resources for language-model systems. Publishing the file does not guarantee adoption, training exclusion, citations, or improved search visibility.

• AI visibility

  AI visibility is an industry term for a brand's observed presence in generated answers. Experimental measurements depend on the engines, prompts, locations, and dates included in the sample.

• AI crawler

  An AI crawler is software used by an AI provider to fetch web resources. Documented provider rules distinguish purposes such as training and search, so controls should be assessed per named crawler.

Sources

1. AI Features and Your Website · accessed October 8, 2026
2. Overview of OpenAI Crawlers · accessed October 8, 2026
3. The /llms.txt file, v2 – llms-txt · accessed October 8, 2026