AEO vs GEO vs SEO: what the acronyms actually mean
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Short answer: AEO is answer engine optimisation. GEO is generative engine optimisation. They overlap so much that many people use the two terms for the same thing: getting your business into AI answers. Where we score them separately, in our article checker, AEO means being quoted as the direct answer and GEO means being cited by an AI assistant. Neither is a separate discipline from SEO, and most of the work is the same.
The three terms
SEO: search engine optimisation
The long-standing practice of getting pages to rank in search results. The goal is a click: appear in a list of ten blue links, and persuade someone to choose yours.
AEO: answer engine optimisation
Optimising to be the answer rather than a link in a list. It predates AI chat: it grew out of featured snippets, voice assistants and “position zero”. The goal is a mention: being the source quoted back to someone who asked a question.
GEO: generative engine optimisation
The newer term, specific to generative assistants: ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity and Google's AI answers. Same objective as AEO, narrower target. You will also see AI SEO, LLM SEO and LLMO used for the same idea. The vocabulary has not settled, and you should not read much into which term someone uses.
What genuinely changes
- There is no results page to rank on. An assistant returns one composed answer. Being “position four” means nothing. You are either in the answer or you are not.
- Questions tend to be conversational and longer. Not “roofer leeds” but “my flat roof leaks after heavy rain, who in Leeds fixes that and roughly what does it cost?”
- Facts beat repeated keywords. A 2024 study of AI search found that adding statistics, quotations and named sources raised visibility, while keyword stuffing did little or nothing.
- Your reputation elsewhere counts. Assistants draw on many sources, so what others say about you can shape the answer. Google warns that chasing fake mentions does not help.
- You may get the mention without the visit. Someone can act on your information without ever loading your site, which changes what you can measure.
What does not change
This is the part the acronyms obscure. ChatGPT search, Perplexity and Gemini grounding all rely on web indexes. If a page is not crawlable, not indexed and not credible, it does not get retrieved, exactly as in ordinary SEO. Fast, accessible, well-structured pages with real information still win. Nobody needs to throw away their SEO and start again.
A practical way to think about it
Traditional SEO asks: how do I rank for this keyword? AEO and GEO ask: if someone asks this question out loud, what would make me the answer?
In practice that means:
- Build pages around questions, and answer them in the first paragraph rather than after 600 words of preamble.
- Publish checkable specifics: prices, coverage areas, timelines, materials, qualifications.
- Use real structure: genuine headings, lists, tables. It helps people, and machines, find the answer on your page.
- Add structured data so the facts are stated outright. Google says it is not required for its AI features, but it still helps with other search results.
- Earn third-party mentions. Nothing on your own domain substitutes for this.
How to measure it
Rank tracking does not apply, because there is no rank. For Google, Search Console now has a Generative AI performance report that shows how your pages do in its AI features. For the other assistants, you can measure how often they mention you when asked about your category without your name in the question. That is what our AI visibility test does, and the free checkup scores the on-page side under AI Search Readiness. See the full check list.
Is it worth a separate budget line?
Honestly: not yet, for most businesses. The overwhelming majority of the work is crawlable, fast, well-structured pages that answer real questions, plus a reputation beyond your own domain. That is the same work that has always been worth doing. Treat AEO and GEO as a change of emphasis rather than a new department. Be sceptical of anyone selling them as a distinct service with guaranteed placements.