AI Search Insight
SEO vs AEO vs GEO: What Is the Difference?
SEO (search engine optimisation) helps pages rank in search results. AEO (answer engine optimisation) structures content so search and AI systems can extract a direct answer to a question and attribute it to the source. GEO (generative engine optimisation) aims to make a business visible and cited inside AI-generated answers from tools such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews.
They are not three separate strategies. All three rest on the same foundations: pages that can be crawled and indexed, accurate information about the business, genuinely useful content and evidence a reader can check. AEO and GEO change the emphasis, not the fundamentals, and no one can guarantee that an AI system will cite a particular business.
Definitions
SEO, AEO and GEO defined
SEO (search engine optimisation): SEO is the work of making a website easy for search engines to crawl, understand and rank for the searches its buyers make, through technical health, useful content, internal linking and authority from other sites.
Madvert Labs offers this as SEO services.
AEO (answer engine optimisation): AEO is the practice of structuring accurate content so that search and AI answer engines can extract a clear answer to a specific question and attribute it to the business that published it.
The short definition is in the glossary, and the full guide is What is AEO?.
GEO (generative engine optimisation): GEO is the practice of improving how often and how accurately a business appears in answers written by generative AI systems, such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews.
The term was popularised by a 2023 research paper, GEO: Generative Engine Optimization, which measured how changes to content affected its visibility in generative engine responses and found that effective strategies varied by domain.
| Factor | SEO | AEO | GEO |
|---|---|---|---|
| Main goal | Rank pages in search results | Be the extracted answer to a question | Be mentioned and cited in AI-written answers |
| Where it shows | Google and Bing results pages | Featured answers, AI Overviews, voice and chat answers | ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot, AI Overviews and AI Mode |
| Unit of work | The page | The question and its answer | The business as an entity across the web |
| Main levers | Technical health, relevance, links | Direct answers, structure, visible FAQs, matching schema | Consistent entity facts, evidence, independent mentions and reviews |
| How it is measured | Rankings, clicks, conversions | Answer appearances, snippet ownership | Prompt tests, citations, AI referral traffic |
AEO vs GEO
AEO vs GEO: what is actually different?
AEO and GEO are often used as synonyms, and the work overlaps heavily. The useful difference is the unit of work. AEO works on the answer: one question, one clear, quotable answer on a page that can be extracted. GEO works on the business: how often and how accurately AI-generated answers mention and cite it across many questions, which also depends on what other websites, reviews and profiles say about it.
| Factor | AEO | GEO |
|---|---|---|
| Focus | A specific question and its answer | The business's presence across AI-generated answers |
| Main work | Question headings, direct answers, tables, visible FAQs | Entity consistency, evidence, reviews, independent mentions |
| Done mostly | On your own pages | On your pages and across the web |
| Typical check | Is our answer the one shown for this question? | Does ChatGPT or Gemini mention us, and describe us correctly? |
Two more terms appear in the same conversations. AIO usually means AI optimisation in general (and sometimes refers to Google's AI Overviews). SGE, Search Generative Experience, was Google's experimental name for what became AI Overviews. Google's own guide to optimising for generative AI features treats all of this as SEO, with useful, original content as the most important factor.
How they connect
How SEO, AEO and GEO work together
AI search experiences mostly draw on search indexes and crawlers that already exist. Google's own guidance on AI features and your website says that the usual SEO best practices remain relevant for AI Overviews and AI Mode. ChatGPT Search relies on OpenAI's search crawler, OAI-SearchBot, which OpenAI documents separately from GPTBot, the crawler it uses for model training (OpenAI crawler overview). So the first question for any AI visibility project is still an SEO question: can the right crawlers reach and index the pages?
Step 1: Crawl and index
Public pages return 200, are not blocked in robots.txt for search crawlers, are in the sitemap and are indexed in Google and Bing.Step 2: Understand
Each page has one clear topic, a descriptive title and headings, server-rendered text and structured data that matches what is visible.Step 3: Answer
Important questions get a direct, self-contained answer near the top, followed by detail, steps, tables and visible FAQs.Step 4: Trust
Claims are backed by named authors, dates, real case studies and sources; independent sites describe the business consistently.Step 5: Measure
Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools for search, plus a fixed set of AI prompts tested every month.
In practice, SEO decides whether a page can be found, AEO decides whether its answer can be lifted cleanly, and GEO decides whether the business is trusted and described accurately when an AI system summarises a topic. A page that is blocked, thin or contradictory fails all three.
What to do
What to do first: a practical order
- Check robots.txt allows Googlebot, Bingbot and OAI-SearchBot on public pages.Decide separately whether training crawlers such as GPTBot are allowed. Blocking GPTBot does not remove a site from ChatGPT Search.
- Verify the site in Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools and submit the sitemap.Bing matters for AI search beyond Bing itself, including Microsoft Copilot.
- Give every service one primary page with a direct answer at the top.Who it is for, what is included, how it works, proof and FAQs, written for buyers.
- Make the business facts identical everywhere.Name, address, phone, services and founder on the website, Google Business Profile, LinkedIn and directories.
- Publish evidence.Case studies with real figures and limitations, a named author and visible publication dates.
- Earn independent mentions.Reviews, partner pages, industry listings and interviews describe the business in other people's words.
- Test and record AI answers monthly.Use the same prompts each month and note whether the business is mentioned, how it is described and which page is cited.
Google's guidance on helpful, reliable, people-first content applies to all three: write for the person asking, show first-hand experience and be clear about who wrote the page and why.
Mistakes
Common AEO and GEO mistakes
- Treating AI visibility as a trick. Hidden text, pages written only for machines and keyword-stuffed FAQs do not create trust and can harm search performance.
- Blocking the crawlers AI search relies on. Some security and “block AI bots” settings block search crawlers together with training crawlers. Check what is actually blocked.
- Relying on a single file or tag. An llms.txt file or extra schema is optional at best. Neither replaces crawlable pages, internal links and good content.
- Adding FAQ schema to every page. Structured data should describe questions that are genuinely visible on the page.
- Buying guarantees. No agency can promise rankings, AI Overview placement or ChatGPT citations, because the systems decide.
FAQs
Frequently asked questions
Is AEO replacing SEO?
No. AEO builds on SEO. AI search experiences draw on crawled and indexed pages, so a site with weak SEO usually has weak AEO too. AEO adds emphasis on direct answers, structure and evidence.
What is the difference between AEO and GEO?
AEO structures a page so that one question gets a clear, extractable answer. GEO is about how often and how accurately a business appears across AI-generated answers, which also depends on reviews, mentions and consistent facts on other websites. The work overlaps, and many people use the terms interchangeably.
Is GEO better than SEO?
No. GEO is not a replacement for SEO. Google's guidance on generative AI features treats optimising for them as SEO, and ChatGPT Search depends on pages its crawler can reach. GEO adds focus on entity consistency, evidence and mentions on top of a sound SEO foundation.
Do I need special schema for AI Overviews?
Google's guidance says the same SEO best practices apply to AI features. Accurate structured data helps search engines understand a page, but it must match the visible content and is not a shortcut to being cited.
Should I block GPTBot to protect my content?
That is a business decision about model training. GPTBot and OAI-SearchBot are separate crawlers, so blocking GPTBot does not stop ChatGPT Search from finding a site, as long as OAI-SearchBot is allowed.
How long does AEO or GEO take to show results?
Technical fixes can be picked up as soon as pages are recrawled, but visibility in AI answers usually builds over months as content, reviews and mentions accumulate. No one can promise a timeline.
Sources
Sources and further reading
- Optimizing your website for generative AI features on Google Search, Google Search Central
- AI features and your website, Google Search Central
- Creating helpful, reliable, people-first content, Google Search Central
- Overview of OpenAI crawlers, OpenAI
- GEO: Generative Engine Optimization (Aggarwal et al., KDD 2024), arXiv