The vocabulary of AI visibility
All AEO/GEO terms, explained plainly for restaurant owners. Each term has its own page.
AEO (Answer Engine Optimization)
Working on your presence for AI answer engines (ChatGPT, Gemini…). Like SEO, but for generated answers instead of blue links.
Optimization ModuleGEO (Generative Engine Optimization)
A common synonym for AEO: being recommended by generative AI when a diner asks where to eat.
Visibility Index
A 0–100 score summarizing your AI presence: a combination of mention rate and ranking, across all diner queries and platforms.
OverviewMention Rate
The share of queries in which your restaurant is cited by AI, across all platforms.
Mentions ModuleAverage Rank
Your average position when cited in a list (1 = first named).
Mentions ModuleShare of Voice
Your citations as a proportion of total citations (yours + competitors) across the same set of queries.
Competitors ModuleEntity Recognition
The ability of AI to link your name to an identifiable record (Google Place ID, Knowledge Graph). A distinctive name connects far better than a generic one.
Position Stability
How steady your ranking stays when the same query is run several times. AI answers vary from one run to the next, so a stable score is a good sign.
Query Fan-out
An AI doesn’t send your query as-is: it expands it into 5–7 variants run in parallel, then merges the results.
RRF (Reciprocal Rank Fusion)
An algorithm that merges sources. In practice: being cited everywhere with a middling rank beats being first on a single source.
Grounding / web search
When AI draws on real-time web data rather than its training memory alone. RestoRank measures with grounding enabled.
Aggregator / OTA
A third-party platform (TheFork, TripAdvisor…) often cited by AI. A link to an aggregator may cost you a commission; a direct link does not.
Direct Link BarometerDirect site vs. aggregator
A RestoRank metric: of responses that cite a source, what share points to YOUR website rather than an aggregator.
Mentions ModuleNAP (Name, Address, Phone)
These three details, written exactly the same way everywhere, let AI tie all your listings back to one and the same place.
schema.org / JSON-LD
Structured data placed on your website (Restaurant, Menu, FAQ, AggregateRating types) that AI reads to describe you accurately.
schema.org GeneratorAI Crawler
An AI’s web-crawling bot (GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, Google-Extended…). Their visits to your site are a visibility signal.
Analytics ModulePersona
A diner type (couple, business, family, solo, tourist…) used to generate realistic queries.
ExplorerDatapoint
A single measurement = one query × one platform × one run. The unit that governs consumption for each plan.
AI Perception
How AI describes your restaurant: the attributes highlighted (cuisine, atmosphere, service, value) and the overall tone.
Perception Module