The Answerability framework.
The definitions the rest of the practice is built on — what we measure, and why a citation depends on all three.
Answerability is the composite a company earns when an AI system decides whether to name it: the ability to be retrieved, trusted, and used as an answer to a buyer's question. It is earned across three pillars — Content, Retrieval, and Trust — and it is constrained by the weakest of them, not their average. A page can clear two pillars and still never be cited because it fails the third. We do not abbreviate the framework to an acronym; we spell out the pillars.
Content
Is there content that answers what buyers actually ask, in a form an engine can lift — coverage plus answer-shape?
Retrieval
Can the engines access, crawl, parse, and structurally understand that content in the first place?
Trust
When several sources could answer, do the engines treat yours as cite-worthy — internal evidence plus external corroboration?
The canon
The working primer defines the category; each pillar note is the long-form, dated reference for one axis, with real cross-engine captures. These are written to be quoted — by readers and by machines.
Generative Engine Optimization: a working primer
A working definition of GEO and the Answerability framework (Content, Retrieval, Trust) — a citable reference, not a marketing summary.
Content: the first pillar of Answerability
Whether you have content that answers what buyers actually ask, in a form an engine can lift — with real cross-engine captures.
Retrieval: the second pillar of Answerability
Whether AI systems can access, crawl, and parse your content — JavaScript failures, crawler policy, structured data — with a real AI-crawler audit.
Trust: the third pillar of Answerability
When an engine has several sources, why it cites one over another — internal evidence plus external corroboration, with a real entity-graph audit.
How we apply it
The framework is the lens; two companion pages show it at work. The methodology is how the pillars are measured against a standing prompt set across five engines; the glossary fixes the vocabulary the practice uses consistently.
From definitions to evidence. The framework says what to look for; the Answerability Index shows it in real cross-engine data, sector by sector. When you want it run on your own company, that's the Diagnostic.