Definition
Plain language
The craft of getting a webpage to show up higher in search results.
As stated in the literature
Search Engine Optimization, the practice of structuring web content to rank highly in search; the conceptual ancestor of Generative Engine Optimization (GEO), which targets what AI search agents retrieve and repeat.
Why it matters: It's the long-running game of shaping what search engines surface, now extended to influencing what AI search tools retrieve and repeat.
For example, a business adds the right keywords and links to its page so it appears near the top when people search for its products.
Heard on the show
“SEO for the era when people get their answers from chatbots instead of search results.”Episode 038 — How LLMs Get Persuaded: One Attention Head, A Tetrahedron, And A Single Dial