Glossary

Definitions for the AI search and SaaS evaluation terms used across CitedIndex.

AI search: A query interface where the answer is generated by a large language model from cited sources, instead of returned as a list of links. Examples: ChatGPT search, Perplexity, Claude with web search, Google AI Mode.
Answer-first passage: A content structure where each section opens with a short, definitive answer, followed by a supporting passage that adds detail and context. Optimized for AI search citation: engines extract the lede, humans read the body.
Answer-first passage: A content structure where each section opens with a short, definitive answer, followed by a supporting passage that adds detail and context. Optimized for AI search citation: engines extract the lede, humans read the body.
Buyer's guide: An editorial article that walks a buyer through how to choose a tool in a category, naming a shortlist of options and the criteria that should drive the choice. One of the formats AI search engines most often cite for B2B software questions.
Citation (in AI search): A reference to an external source in an AI-generated answer. Citations may be inline hyperlinks, footnotes, or a sources panel. Engines vary in how they expose citations and which sources they prefer.
Do-follow link: A hyperlink that passes ranking authority (PageRank or its modern equivalents) from the linking page to the linked page. The default link type. Distinct from rel="nofollow" links, which signal no editorial endorsement.
E-E-A-T: Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness. Google's quality framework for evaluating content authors and publishers. Used as a signal in AI Overviews and AI Mode citation selection.
Entity graph: A network of named entities (people, organizations, products, concepts) and their relationships, as represented by a search engine or AI system. Built from structured data, sameAs cross-references, and corpus co-occurrence.
Generative Engine Optimization: The practice of structuring web content so generative AI engines (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini) preferentially cite it when answering user queries. Distinct from traditional SEO, which optimizes for ranked links rather than cited passages.
Schema markup: Structured-data annotation (typically JSON-LD) that describes a page's entities, types, and relationships for search engines. The vocabulary is defined by Schema.org and consumed by Google, Bing, and the retrieval pipelines behind AI search engines.
sameAs: A schema.org property linking an entity to its canonical reference on another platform (Wikidata, LinkedIn, GitHub, X). Treated by Google and AI engines as the primary disambiguation signal for the entity graph.