Key Terms from 'AI Search, Shopify & the New Rules of SEO' with Garrett Sussman (Alphabetical Order)

AI Content Scraping

When AI platforms collect information from websites to train models or generate answers. This is debated as content theft versus free exposure.

AI Overviews (Google)

Google's generative search feature that summarizes results using AI, blending multiple sources into one answer.

AI Search

Search powered by artificial intelligence, like ChatGPT or Perplexity, which understands context and generates conversational answers.

Affiliate Model

A system where AI platforms like ChatGPT could earn a commission when users buy products they recommend, similar to affiliate marketing.

Brand Authority

How credible and trustworthy your brand appears online, built through mentions, backlinks, and consistent presence.

Brand Resume

A concept describing your digital footprint across platforms such as your website, Reddit, Google, and LinkedIn, strengthening brand authority.

Cloudflare

A web hosting and security provider that recently faced controversy for blocking AI bots from crawling new websites.

Crawlable / Crawl Budget

A site is crawlable when bots can access it. Crawl budget is how many pages a search engine will visit, affecting indexing.

Google Merchant Center

A free tool for e-commerce businesses to upload product data so items appear in Google Shopping and AI search results.

Hub and Spoke Model

A content structure with one main hub page and supporting spoke pages. It builds topical authority and depth.

Indexing

When search engines store and organize your pages so they can appear in search results.

JavaScript

A coding language for interactive features, but too much can hide content from search bots if not optimized.

Keyword Optimization

Choosing and using target words people search for, now being replaced by intent and topic-based optimization.

LLM (Large Language Model)

The technology behind AI tools like ChatGPT that predicts words and generates human-like text.

Merchant Feed

A structured file of product details such as price, description, and image, used by platforms like Google Merchant Center and OpenAI.

Multimodal Search

Search using multiple types of media like text, video, images, and audio for richer, contextual answers.

Perplexity

An AI search engine that combines chat-style answers with cited sources. An example of conversational discovery.

Quality Clicks vs. Quantity Clicks

Quality clicks come from visitors likely to buy, while quantity clicks just measure volume. Modern SEO favors quality.

Query Fan-Out

An AI process that expands one query into many related ones to find the best and most relevant information from multiple sources.

Raffle Ticket Analogy

Garrett's metaphor that every page or mention you create is another chance to be picked by AI or search results.

Robots.txt

A file that tells bots what they can or cannot crawl. Blocking too much can make your business invisible online.

Shopify–OpenAI Integration

A partnership signaling that ChatGPT may recommend Shopify products, shaping AI-driven e-commerce.

Shopping Graph

Google's system that connects data about products, merchants, and listings, powering its shopping recommendations.

Skyscraper Content

Long-form content designed to outperform competitors, now less about length and more about clarity and context.

Traffic / SERPs

SERPs are Search Engine Results Pages, the list of pages shown after a search query. SEO aims to improve visibility there.

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