What is AEO and GEO, and how are they different from SEO?

What does AEO mean?

AEO stands for answer engine optimisation. An answer engine gives a person one written answer instead of ten blue links: ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, Google AI Overviews and Google AI Mode all work this way. AEO makes your pages easy for these engines to find, understand and quote, so that when someone asks a question you can answer, your business is the one named.

What does GEO mean?

GEO stands for generative engine optimisation. It covers the same goal from the angle of generative AI: being mentioned and cited when an AI model writes its answer. In practice, people use AEO and GEO for the same set of tasks, and this guide treats them together.

How is it different from SEO?

• The result you want: SEO wants a high rank on a results page. AEO and GEO want your name inside the answer, and a link to you among its sources.
• What gets judged: search engines rank whole pages. AI engines pick out short, clear statements they can quote, and they weigh what other websites say about you: reviews, directories, articles and listings.
• How you measure it: SEO tracks rankings and clicks. AEO tracks how often AI names you for a set of buyer questions, and who it names instead.

Do I still need SEO?

Yes. AI engines that search the web find pages through search indexes, so a site that search engines can't crawl or index is hard for AI to use too. Think of SEO as the foundation and AEO/GEO as the extra layer that turns your pages and reputation into answers. Read more on SEO and AI answers.