AEO
Answer Engine Optimisation — structuring content so an answer engine can extract and present it as a direct answer, typically through summary blocks, question-shaped headings and FAQ structured data.
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The vocabulary, defined without the sales pitch.
Forty-two terms that appear in distribution contracts, SEO decks and AI visibility proposals — with definitions you can act on.
Quick answer
This glossary defines press release distribution, SEO and AI visibility terminology, including AEO, GEO, LLMO, canonical URL, pickup rate, share of answer, dofollow, nofollow, structured data, newsroom, newswire, embargo, boilerplate and zero-click search.
AIO
AI Optimisation — an umbrella term covering AEO, GEO and LLMO. Often used loosely in vendor marketing; it has no precise technical definition.
AMP
Accelerated Mobile Pages — a deprecated Google initiative that restricted markup. Rarely relevant to press releases in 2026.
Anchor text
The visible, clickable text of a hyperlink. In press release SEO, natural anchor variation from syndicating outlets matters more than engineered anchors.
Boilerplate
The standard "About" paragraph appended to a release, describing the issuing organisation. Reproduced verbatim by syndicating outlets, so it must be current.
Canonical URL
The URL declared as the authoritative version of a page, preventing duplicate-content problems when a release is syndicated widely.
Cost per pickup
Total distribution cost divided by the number of outlets with genuine audiences that carried the release. The most useful single comparison metric between providers.
Dateline
The city and date at the start of a release, establishing geographic and temporal grounding.
Distribution tier
A grouping of outlets by reach and type. Tier 1 is national and international newswire; Tier 4 is machine-readable feeds and AI retrieval systems.
Dofollow
A link without the rel="nofollow" attribute, allowing search engines to count it as a ranking signal. Most syndicated press release links are nofollow.
Embargo
An agreement that a release is not published before a specified time. Honoured to the minute and timezone when set explicitly.
Earned media
Coverage produced by a journalist or outlet without payment. Distinct from paid placement, which must be labelled.
Entity
A distinct thing — organisation, person, place, product — that search and AI systems model separately. Writing entities consistently is central to LLMO.
GEO
Generative Engine Optimisation — optimising to be cited and attributed inside AI-generated responses, which depends on corroboration and authority more than formatting.
Google News
A Google surface for news content. Inclusion depends on publisher status and technical signals rather than any single submission mechanism.
Holding statement
A short, pre-approved public statement issued immediately after an incident, before full facts are established.
Impressions
A count of potential exposures. Frequently inflated and largely unusable for decision-making in PR reporting.
JSON-LD
A JSON format for embedding structured data in a web page, used here for Organization, NewsArticle, FAQPage and HowTo schema.
Knowledge graph
A structured database of entities and relationships, such as the knowledge graph behind search engines' entity understanding and many retrieval systems.
LLMO
Large Language Model Optimisation — making an organisation factually retrievable and correctly described by language models, through entity clarity, structured data and an open crawler policy.
llms.txt
A proposed convention for a plain-text file that summarises a site for language models, placed at the site root.
Material news
Information a reasonable investor would consider important to a decision. Typically subject to disclosure rules and quiet-period controls.
Media list
The set of journalists and outlets targeted for a story. In this context, the contracted distribution destinations for a release.
Multichannel amplification
Distributing a single announcement across owned, earned and paid channels simultaneously.
NewsArticle schema
Structured data markup describing a news article, including headline, date, author and publisher. Drives rich results and improves machine comprehension.
Newsroom
An organisation's own press centre. A branded newsroom hosted on your domain compounds authority rather than donating it to a third-party site.
Newswire
A service that distributes announcements to media organisations and data feeds. Historically satellite and teletype based, now entirely digital.
Nofollow
An attribute telling search engines not to count a link as a ranking signal. Common on syndicated content and user-generated pages.
Organization schema
Structured data describing an organisation's identity, location, contacts and profiles. The foundation of LLMO.
Pickup
An instance of an outlet carrying your release or reporting from it. Pickup rate is the proportion of targeted outlets that carried the story.
Pickup map
A geographic visualisation of where a release was carried, used to plan regional targeting for future campaigns.
Press release
A written announcement distributed to media, now also read by search engines, aggregators and AI retrieval systems.
Quiet period
A defined window in which an organisation restricts external communications, commonly around financial reporting.
Share of answer
The proportion of responses to a fixed question set in which your brand appears, measured across AI answer engines.
Share of voice
Your proportion of total category coverage or mentions compared with named competitors over a given period.
Spam compliance
Adherence to search engine guidelines on paid links, cloaking and manipulative content. Violations create penalty risk on your domain, not the vendor's.
Structured data
Machine-readable markup added to a page that describes its content, enabling rich results and better machine comprehension.
Syndication
Republishing the same release across multiple outlets and feeds. The mechanism by which distribution creates reach and corroboration.
Terminal delivery
Distribution to financial data terminals used by analysts and traders, required for material financial news.
Tier 1 wire
The top tier of distribution, reaching national and international newswires and major financial media.
Wire fee
A charge applied by some providers per additional outlet group or for premium placement lanes, often not shown in headline pricing.
Zero-click
A search or AI interaction where the user gets their answer without visiting a website. Increasingly the norm for factual and comparative questions.
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