AI Term Glossary – searchrovr

Accessibility refers to the design of digital content and interfaces so that they can be used by people with disabilities, including those who rely on screen readers, keyboard navigation, or other assistive technologies. In the context of site search, accessibility ensures that all users can interact with and benefit from the search experience. This means…

Advanced Custom Fields (ACF) is a popular WordPress plugin that lets site owners and developers easily add and manage custom metadata fields for posts, pages, and custom post types. These fields can include text, images, dates, relationships, and more – allowing content to be highly structured and tailored to specific needs. For SearchRovr, ACF support…

Artificial Intelligence (AI) refers to the development of computer systems that can perform tasks typically requiring human intelligence. These tasks include learning, reasoning, problem-solving, understanding language, recognizing patterns, and making decisions. AI can be narrow (focused on a specific task, like autocomplete) or general (able to perform a broad range of cognitive tasks). In the…

A block is a modular content unit used in WordPress’s Block Editor (AKA Gutenberg). A block can be something as simple as a paragraph or heading – or sophisticated columns, rows, images, embeds, and more. With SearchRovr, site owners can add AI-powered search functionality using a shortcode or future block-based interface.

Gutenberg is WordPress’s visual content editor that uses blocks to build pages and posts. SearchRovr is designed to work seamlessly within the Block Editor experience.

Bounce rate is the percentage of users who visit a page and leave without interacting further -like navigating to another page or clicking a search result. In search analytics, a high bounce rate may suggest that users didn’t find what they were looking for. This is a metric where you actually want a low percent….

Chunking is the process of breaking down large blocks of content into smaller, meaningful sections – called “chunks” – that can be more easily understood, retrieved, and processed by AI models or search engines. These chunks often align with logical structures in the content, such as paragraphs, headings, or list items, and are used to…

In the context of AI-powered search and content generation, citations are references that show the source of information used in a response. They help establish credibility, traceability, and transparency, especially when AI is summarizing or answering based on a large set of documents or web content. For tools like SearchRovr, citations link AI-generated answers directly…

A CMS is software that allows users to create, manage, and publish digital content – usually without needing to write code. It provides tools for organizing pages, media, users, and plugins or extensions. A CMS simplifies website management for both developers and non-technical users. SearchRovr is designed to integrate seamlessly with CMS platforms like WordPress,…

Content types are different kinds of content within WordPress, such as posts, pages, products, or custom post types. SearchRovr indexes any content type you choose to make searchable.

Conversion refers to the completion of a desired action on your site – such as signing up for a newsletter, downloading a resource, or making a purchase. Search performance can influence conversion by helping users find exactly what they need. With SearchRovr, improving search relevance and reducing friction can directly contribute to higher conversion rates…

Custom fields are extra metadata assigned to posts, pages, or post type items in WordPress. These can be added via a theme (usually via functions.php file) or plugin (like Advanced Custom Fields) SearchRovr can index these fields to enhance the depth and relevance of AI responses.

Custom Post Types allow you to create and manage specialized content in WordPress, such as FAQs, events, or products. This is WordPress’s standard architecture for adding on additional content types. Oftentimes a plugin like Advanced Custom Fields (ACF), Meta Box, Pods, or Toolset are used to easily add CPTs without coding. SearchRovr fully supports CPTs…

A database is where all your WordPress content is stored. The standard WordPress database is a MySQL table. Often you access this with a tool like PHPmyAdmin. SearchRovr accesses your database via the REST API to index searchable content.

An engine refers to the specific AI-powered model and indexing configuration powering your search instance. Each SearchRovr site has its own engine with customizable settings. You may have an Engine that pulls content from multiple sites. You might also have multiple Engines on a single site (if you wanted different search bars that searched different…

An excerpt is a short summary of a post or page. SearchRovr may display excerpts in search results to give users quick context for what they’ll find.

Faceted search is a way of refining search results by selecting from predefined categories or attributes, such as tags, price ranges, or content types. It helps users explore and narrow down results in an intuitive, step-by-step way, which makes it especially useful for e-commerce, knowledgebases, and resource hubs. SearchRovr will soon support faceted search by…

Definition 1: In WordPress, a filter is a type of hook that allows developers to modify data before it is used or displayed. Filters can change things like content output, query parameters, or plugin settings by passing data through a custom function. For example, a filter might be used to adjust the title of a…

Fuzzy matching allows the search engine to return results even when there are typos or near matches in the search query.

GPT is a type of language model developed by OpenAI. SearchRovr relies on GPT-based models to power natural language understanding and content generation. The text-embedding-3-large model by OpenAI (model details) is the default and primary model used to return fast and relevant results.

In artificial intelligence, hallucinating refers to when an AI model generates information that sounds plausible but is false, misleading, or entirely made up. This often happens with large language models (LLMs) when they produce text that isn’t grounded in real data or accurate sources. In the context of SearchRovr, hallucination can occur if the AI…

A hook in WordPress is a way to insert or modify functionality without editing core files. SearchRovr uses hooks to trigger indexing after content is updated or published. See also “filters“.

Indexing is the process of scanning and storing content so it can be searched. A store of search results is called an index. SearchRovr indexes your WordPress content automatically and keeps it in sync.

A Large Language Model (LLM) is a type of advanced AI system trained on massive datasets of text to understand and generate human-like language. These models use billions (or even trillions) of parameters to analyze context, predict words, answer questions, summarize content, and more. Examples include OpenAI’s GPT models and Google’s PaLM. LLMs power the…

Metadata is data that describes other data, like taxonomies, tags, categories, or custom fields. SearchRovr uses metadata to improve the accuracy and context of search results.

A model is the underlying AI system used to process language and generate results. SearchRovr lets you choose from various models depending on performance or cost. The GPT text-embedding-3-large model by OpenAI (model details) is the default and primary model used to return fast and relevant results.

Multisite is a WordPress setup where multiple sites run under a single install. In a standard WordPress multisite network you have multiple installs that are semi-siloed but can share plugins, themes, users, and have some controlled overlap. These sites are in a separate domain, subdomain, or subdirectory set up. SearchRovr supports WordPress Multisite and can…

NLP is the branch of Artificial Intelligence that helps computers understand and respond to human language. SearchRovr uses NLP to turn human queries into relevant content matches.

A natural language query is a search written in plain human language, like “How do I install the plugin?” It uses a technology called Natural Language Processing (NLP). SearchRovr is optimized to interpret and respond to these types of queries.