GEO GLOSSARY
A technique where a model retrieves relevant documents at answer time and includes them in its working context before generating a response, instead of answering purely from what it learned during training.
When a model answers from training data alone, no amount of website changes today can influence what it already learned. When a model uses RAG, a page published or updated today can be retrieved and cited within hours, which is what makes ongoing GEO work meaningful rather than a one-time exercise.
RAG only works if the retrieval step can actually reach and parse a page — blocked by robots.txt, hidden behind heavy client-side rendering, or requiring a login all remove a page from consideration regardless of how well-written its content is.
See how these terms are used in practice in MagRank AI’s methodology.
