Definition

Chunk

A chunk is a segment of a page — often a few hundred tokens — that a retrieval system embeds and retrieves independently of the full document.

Because retrieval happens at chunk level, page-level optimisation is the wrong altitude. Each section should be independently coherent.

Clear headings, self-contained sections and explicit subjects (rather than pronouns referring back) all improve how a chunk reads in isolation.

Related terms

Retrieval-augmented generation (RAG)Answer-first content Embedding

Nostimates measures chunk across twelve AI answer surfaces. Request access →

All terms

AEO (Answer Engine Optimisation)GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation)AI Overviews AI Mode Citation share n-sampling Query fan-out Grounding Share of voice (AI)Extraction success rate Surface Answer engine Citation Brand mention Mention rate Confidence interval Statistical significance Citation volatility Non-determinism Reproducibility Identity-free collection Personalisation Locale Residential proxy Bot detection Collection cost Credit Evidence retention Audit trail Parser version Canary prompt Data freshness Cadence Prompt set Head term Long-tail query Competitive set llms.txt robots.txt AI crawler Training crawler Retrieval-augmented generation (RAG)Hallucination Answer box Featured snippet Zero-click search Entity Entity salience Knowledge graph Structured data JSON-LD schema.org FAQ schema Answer-first content Embedding Semantic search Prompt injection Market coverage Sentiment analysis Position tracking White-label data