64 terms, plain English
The AI SEO glossary for health practices
Every term you'll hear about getting found on Google and named by ChatGPT, Google AI and Perplexity, explained for practice owners. Each one covers how it works, a real practice example, how to check yours in 60 seconds, and what to do about it. For the full method, read AI SEO for Health Practices: The Complete Guide.
The basics
What AI search is and where patients use it.
- AI OverviewsGoogle's AI-written summaries shown above search results, with links to sources.
- AI SEOMaking your practice easy to find on Google and easy for AI tools to name.
- Answer Engine Optimization (AEO)Structuring your pages so AI answer tools can quote them as the source.
- ChatGPT SearchChatGPT's web search feature, which answers with links to the sources it used.
- Conversational searchSearching by asking full questions and follow-ups, the way you would talk to a person.
- Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)Raising the odds that AI models mention your practice when they write answers.
- Google AI ModeGoogle's conversational search experience for complex, multi-part questions with links to the web.
- Large language model (LLM)The AI system behind chat tools that writes answers by predicting text.
- PerplexityAn AI answer engine that searches the web live and cites numbered sources.
- Zero-click searchA search where the answer appears on the results page and no website is visited.
How AI picks an answer
Why one practice gets named and another doesn't.
- AI brand mentionWhen an AI answer names your practice in its text, with or without a link.
- AI citationA link or numbered source an AI answer shows as where its information came from.
- AI PersonalizationWhen an AI or search tool tailors answers to the person asking, using location, history or saved context.
- CorroborationWhen several independent sources state the same fact about your practice, and AI tools treat it as more reliable.
- GroundingTying an AI model's answer to real outside sources, like current web pages.
- HallucinationA confident AI answer that sounds plausible but is false.
- Query fan-outWhen an AI search tool splits one question into many related searches at once.
- Retrieval-augmented generation (RAG)An AI method that fetches relevant documents first, then writes its answer from them.
- Training DataThe text an AI model learned from before release, separate from pages it looks up live.
Being recognized
How Google and AI confirm who your practice is.
- BacklinksClickable links from other websites to yours, different from mentions and AI citations.
- E-E-A-TGoogle's quality framework of experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trust, used to judge helpful content.
- EntityA specific, identifiable person, business or place that search engines and AI can tell apart from similar names.
- Entity homeThe single page on your site that serves as the official source of facts about your practice.
- Google Business ProfileYour free business listing on Google Search and Maps, where you control address, hours, phone and photos.
- Knowledge GraphGoogle's database of real-world people, places and things, and the relationships between them.
- Knowledge panelThe information box Google shows about a person, place or organization when it is confident about who they are.
- Local citationsOnline mentions of your practice's name, address and phone number, on directories and other sites.
- Medical schemaThe schema.org labels built for health businesses, such as MedicalClinic and Physician.
- NAP consistencyUsing the identical business name, address and phone number on your website, listings and profiles.
- NPI registryThe free public CMS database of National Provider Identifier records, with name, address and specialty.
- Online ReviewsPublic ratings and written comments from patients on Google Maps and other review sites.
- Schema markupCode added to a web page that labels its facts, like name, address and specialty, for search engines.
- Topical AuthorityCovering one condition or service area so completely, with linked pages, that your site is the obvious source.
- YMYLYour Money or Your Life: topics where inaccurate content could harm a person's health, finances or safety.
Being quotable
How your pages get lifted into answers.
- Answer-first writingWriting that states the direct answer in the first sentence, then adds detail.
- ChunkingHow AI tools split a web page into short passages and judge each one on its own.
- Content FreshnessA page that is actually current, with a visible updated date that matches a real review.
- ExtractabilityHow easily a machine can pull a clear, accurate answer out of your page.
- Fact densityHow many specific, checkable facts a page contains relative to its length.
- Featured snippetA box at the top of Google results that shows a page's answer before the link.
- People Also AskA group of related questions in Google results, each opening to a short answer.
- Pricing PageA page on your own site that states what your services cost, or a realistic range.
- Quotable sentenceA self-contained sentence an AI tool can lift into an answer without losing meaning.
AI crawlers
The bots that read your site, and which to let in.
- AI bot blockingUsing robots.txt to tell specific AI crawlers not to read your website.
- AI crawlerAn automated program that reads web pages for an AI company's training or search products.
- Bing Webmaster ToolsMicrosoft's free dashboard for verifying your site, submitting a sitemap and seeing how Bing indexes it.
- Google-ExtendedA robots.txt token that controls whether Google uses your content for Gemini training and grounding.
- GPTBotOpenAI's web crawler that collects content that may be used to train its AI models.
- IndexingIndexing is a search engine storing a page so it can be shown in results.
- llms.txtA proposed Markdown file at /llms.txt that gives AI tools a short guide to your site.
- OAI-SearchBotOpenAI's crawler that surfaces websites in ChatGPT's search features.
Measuring it
How to know whether AI is naming you.
- AI Answer VariabilityThe way an AI tool gives different wording, names and links each time you ask the same question.
- AI Brand AccuracyWhether AI tools describe your practice correctly, from name and specialty to providers and prices.
- AI share of voiceYour practice's share of all provider mentions across a fixed set of AI answers.
- AI Source MapA log of the outside websites AI tools repeatedly cite for your patients' questions.
- AI visibilityHow often AI tools name or cite your practice when patients ask relevant questions.
- Branded vs Unbranded QuestionsBranded questions name your practice. Unbranded questions name only the need and the place.
- ChatGPT referral trafficVisits to your website that begin with a click on a link inside ChatGPT.
- Citation shareThe percentage of AI answers in a test set that cite your website as a source.
- Prompt trackingRunning a fixed set of patient questions through AI tools repeatedly and recording what they say.
Healthcare rules
The compliance side of using AI.
- AI Use PolicyA short written policy on what staff may put into AI tools and who checks the output.
- Business Associate Agreement (BAA)A HIPAA contract that a practice signs with any vendor that handles patient information for it.
- Patient TestimonialsThe rules for publishing a patient's words, story or photo: written permission, honest results and clear disclosure.
- Review Response PrivacyReplying to a patient review in public without confirming the reviewer is a patient or sharing health details.