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The vocabulary

Eleven words EOMA uses constantly — AEO, engine, prompt, run, citation, source, share of voice, gap, action, brand index — each defined in one line.

#In 10 seconds

• Eleven words carry most of EOMA. Learn these and every screen becomes readable.
• The two worth learning first are prompt (a question EOMA asks on your behalf) and run (one round of those questions going out).
• Each definition below links to the page that goes deeper.

#The short version

EOMA measures something the industry has not agreed on a name for yet, so its vocabulary is a mixture of borrowed search terms and new ones. Most of the confusion is in three places: prompt means a question and not an instruction to a chatbot, source and citation are related but not the same, and engine means an AI assistant rather than a search engine.

The rest is ordinary. Read this once and keep it as a reference.

#How it works

AEO — Answer Engine Optimisation. Making your brand more likely to appear in the answer an AI assistant generates. The equivalent of SEO for a world where the buyer gets one answer instead of ten links. → What EOMA is

GEO — Generative Engine Optimisation. The same idea under a different name. Different vendors picked different letters; EOMA treats them as synonyms and uses AEO.

Engine. One AI assistant. EOMA asks four: ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity. They are asked the same questions and they frequently disagree, which is itself a finding. → AI provider visibility

Prompt. One whole question EOMA puts to the engines on your behalf — "which sites are best for renting a villa in Antalya?" — not a keyword and not an instruction. Your set is written from your brand profile, and you can edit it, switch questions off, and add your own in any language. → Why your prompts matter

Run. One round of your questions going out to the engines and the answers being recorded. Paid plans run once a week. Each run takes a quarter of your question set, so four runs cover all of it. → What a run is

Citation. A source the engine quoted or linked in an answer. The distinction that matters: a citation of your own site inside an answer to a question that named your brand is your own echo, not evidence anyone found you. EOMA ranks on citations you earned — from questions that never mentioned you. → How your visibility is scored

Source. The website a citation points at — your domain, a competitor's, a directory, a newspaper. The sources board ranks the domains the engines trust enough to quote in your category, with your own row marked in place. → Your brand on Google

Share of voice. Your slice of every brand mention across your answers. Two views: the brands the engines named on their own, and the competitor list you keep. They will disagree, and both are right. → Competitors and share of voice

Gap. A question you keep losing — the engines answer it, and you are not in the answer. Gaps are where the recommended work comes from, because a gap is a specific, addressable thing rather than a general low score. You meet them as the to-dos on your Actions board rather than as a list of their own. → Actions

Action. One specific job on your board: write this page, add this source, correct this profile. Each one is either something EOMA can do for you or something only you can do, and the board says which. → The life of an action

Brand index. The canonical record of what is true about your business — name, contact details, languages, reach — as the engines should have it. You confirm and correct it, and it is what EOMA uses when a correction needs to be published somewhere. → Brand index

#What this means for you

When a screen says "visibility", ask which one. EOMA has two related figures that are easy to conflate: the rate at which you appear in answers, and the eight-axis score that weights being suggested far above being known. They describe the same reality with different denominators and they will not match.

"Mentions" and "answers" are different denominators. A single answer that names a competitor twice contributes two mentions. Percentages computed on mentions and percentages computed on answers can differ several-fold while both being correct.

"Tracked" and "held" are different for keywords too. Your pool is what you hold; your tracked set is the much smaller group actually checked each week. → Plans and limits

"Active" means eligible, not scheduled. An active prompt is a candidate for the next run, not a promise it will be asked this month.

#Common misunderstandings

#Related

• What EOMA is — the product in one page
• How your visibility is scored — the number these words add up to
• Dashboard — where most of these appear together