AI search glossary
Entity SEO: making search and AI engines recognise your brand
Entity SEO is the practice of helping search engines and AI models recognise a brand, person, product or place as a distinct entity, with consistent facts and clear links to the sources that describe it, rather than as a string of keywords.
Also called: entity-based SEO, entity optimization
Why it matters for AI search
AI assistants answer questions about things: which tool, which company, which product. If a model cannot tell your brand apart from a similarly named one, or holds conflicting facts about it, it either skips you or describes you wrongly. Entity SEO gives engines one clear, consistent identity to recommend.
Things, not strings
When Google launched its Knowledge Graph in May 2012, it described the shift as "things, not strings". Search would understand that a query refers to a real-world entity with attributes and relationships, not just letters to match. At launch the graph held more than 500 million objects and more than 3.5 billion facts and relationships, drawn from sources such as Freebase, Wikipedia and the CIA World Factbook.
An entity has an identity (a name, maybe aliases), a type (Organization, Person, Product), attributes (founding date, location, price) and relationships (founded by, part of, competitor of). Search engines and language models both work better when those facts are clear and agree with each other.
How engines decide who you are
Engines reconcile what many sources say:
- Your own site: the About page, contact details, product pages.
- Structured data: Google says Organization markup helps it "disambiguate your organization in search results" and can influence the logo and knowledge panel. Its
sameAsproperty lists other pages about you, such as social profiles. - Open databases: Wikidata items with identifiers and references are widely reused.
- Third parties: directories, reviews, press and industry lists.
If these agree, the entity is strong. If your name, category or description differs from place to place, engines may merge you with someone else or ignore you.
Entity SEO steps
- Write one canonical description: name, category, what you sell, who it is for, location, founding year.
- Put it on your About page and in Organization schema, with
sameAslinks to your real profiles. - Use the same wording on Google Business Profile, LinkedIn, app stores, marketplaces and directories.
- If you meet Wikidata's notability policy (a sitelink, a clearly identifiable entity described by serious public references, or a structural need), create or correct an item, with references.
- Ask AI engines such as Claude and Gemini "What is [brand]?" and fix the sources behind any wrong answer.
Expect this to take months rather than days. Search engines and model makers refresh their data on their own schedules, and a single new profile rarely changes much. Consistency across many sources is what moves the needle.
Related ideas
Entities live in a knowledge graph. Content written around entities and their relationships is semantic SEO.
Questions
- What counts as an entity?
- Any distinct thing that can be described with facts: a company, a person, a product, a place, an event, a creative work. Google's Knowledge Graph Search API lists types such as Organization, Person, Place, Event, Book and Movie, using schema.org types.
- How do I know if Google sees my brand as an entity?
- A knowledge panel for your brand name is the clearest sign. You can also query the Knowledge Graph Search API, though Google says that API is not for production-critical use and is migrating to Cloud Enterprise Knowledge Graph.
- Do I need a Wikipedia page for entity SEO?
- No. Wikipedia helps, but most small companies do not meet its notability rules. Consistent facts on your own site, Organization markup with sameAs links, and profiles on trusted directories and Wikidata (if you qualify) all help.
- Is entity SEO different from semantic SEO?
- Entity SEO is about your own identity: being recognised as one specific thing. Semantic SEO is about content: covering a topic's meaning and related concepts so pages match intent.