SEO, AEO and GEO describe overlapping work
SEO improves how people discover your content in organic search. AEO emphasizes visibility in answers. GEO emphasizes visibility in generated responses. The work overlaps, the experiences overlap, and AEO and GEO are often used for the same activity.
A client asks whether they need GEO now that they have an SEO agency. Another wants an AEO audit. A third asks if “AI SEO” is included in the retainer. Before you price three services, agree on what each one is supposed to accomplish.
At AI Page Ready, we use AEO for work aimed at helping a business be discovered and accurately represented in AI search and answer experiences. We distinguish page readiness from observed visibility. A well-organized page and a brand appearing in an answer are two different findings.
This is our working vocabulary. There is no universal AEO/GEO boundary. HubSpot, for example, uses AEO as an umbrella term and explicitly acknowledges that other marketers define the terms differently.
How SEO, AEO and GEO differ
The table describes common usage, with one important qualification: SEO includes more than blue links. Google’s AI features are part of its search experience, and the same page can appear in several formats.
| Compare | SEO | AEO | GEO |
|---|---|---|---|
| Full name | Search engine optimization | Answer engine optimization | Generative engine optimization |
| Main emphasis | Discovery and performance in organic search, including AI search features | Being surfaced accurately in answer experiences | Visibility within generated responses |
| Where you see it | Google and Bing results, including their AI features | Direct answers, featured snippets and AI assistants | Generated answers in products such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity |
| Useful observations | Indexing, impressions, rankings, clicks and conversions | Answer appearances, brand mentions, recommendations and citations | Brand mentions, citations, referrals and conversions from generated answers |
| Work in common | Accessible pages, useful content and credible evidence | Accessible pages, useful content and credible evidence | Accessible pages, useful content and credible evidence |
SEO — Search Engine Optimization
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the practice of improving a website’s visibility in organic search results. It helps search engines discover and understand content, and helps people decide whether to visit it. The work includes crawl access, indexing, site structure, useful pages and clear presentation. Google’s SEO Starter Guide covers that foundation.
A useful SEO brief names the audience, the questions the page should answer, the technical barriers and the desired business outcome. “Improve SEO” is too broad to tell a writer or developer what to change.
AEO — Answer Engine Optimization
Answer engine optimization (AEO) is the practice of helping a business appear accurately in answers from search engines and AI assistants. The work focuses on whether a system can find the relevant information, answer the question correctly, and name or link to the right business.
You will encounter AEO in discussions of featured snippets, voice answers and modern AI assistants. Those experiences are different. A snippet selected from one page is not the same as a response assembled from several sources. Google chooses featured snippets automatically; there is no tag that makes a passage become one.
GEO — Generative Engine Optimization
Generative engine optimization (GEO) is the practice of improving a business’s visibility and accurate representation in responses generated by AI systems.
The research paper GEO: Generative Engine Optimization was first submitted in November 2023 and accepted at KDD 2024. It formalized a framework for changing source content and measuring its visibility in generative-engine answers.
The paper’s often-repeated “up to 40%” result belongs to its experiments and metrics. It is not a forecast for your client’s traffic or a guaranteed lift on current assistants. The authors note that the methods may need to change as engines evolve.
What do AI SEO, LLMO and LLM SEO mean?
AI SEO can mean optimizing for AI search, or using AI software for ordinary SEO tasks. Ask which one the speaker means. LLMO means large language model optimization; LLM SEO is another label used around model-based discovery. Neither tells you whether the work concerns live web retrieval, brand representation or something else. Put the scope in plain English.
One business in search listings and AI answers
Imagine Harbor Cycles, a fictional bike workshop. Its repair page states that it repairs tubeless tires in Riverside, with prices starting at $35. A customer asks: “Does Harbor Cycles repair tubeless tires?”
The presentation changes.
Tubeless tire repairs from $35 at our Riverside workshop. Bring your bike in for an assessment.
A relevant result links to the repair page. The customer can visit to check the service, price and location.
In each view, the page needs the same basic facts. The result changes what the agency should inspect: a relevant listing, a correct extracted answer, or an accurate generated response with a usable source.
The generated answer might name Harbor Cycles but cite another website. It might cite the repair page without recommending the shop. It might also get the price wrong. Record those as different observations.
Ask a colleague to find the service, location, starting price and booking conditions on the page. If they need to infer them, rewrite those passages first. That is a concrete task you can verify, whatever label appears on the proposal.
A citation, a visit and a lead are different results
An audit can establish that a page responds successfully and describes the business clearly. It cannot establish that an assistant will recommend it. Even a recorded recommendation cannot tell you whether anyone visited or became a customer.
- Search performance
- Track indexing, impressions, clicks and relevant search positions. Note the search surface and date; an average position is not a permanent placement.
- Brand visibility
- Save the question, platform, response, date and available language or location context. Record brand mentions and recommendations separately from linked citations.
- Citation coverage
- For a fixed prompt sample, count valid answers linking to your domain and state the denominator. Keep failed collections separate from valid answers with no citation.
- Business outcomes
- Connect identifiable referrals to audit requests, qualified leads and sales where possible. A citation count does not establish any of those outcomes, and referrals will not capture every influence.
valid answers
mention the brand
valid answers
cite its website
A 30% mention rate and a 10% citation rate describe this sample. Neither is a market-wide share or a conversion rate.
Bing’s first-party reporting makes this distinction explicit: its citation counts show source appearances across supported AI experiences. They do not establish a page’s ranking or placement within an individual answer.
Keep the questions consistent when comparing runs, and log changes to pages and collection methods. A later increase is worth investigating; it does not by itself prove which edit caused it.
Start with a business question, then measure the outcome
Use the terminology to explain the engagement, then make the deliverables specific. A small, documented first pass gives you a better conversation than a promise to “win AI search.”
- Choose a business question. Pick a service, audience and decision the page should help with. Start with questions real prospects ask, rather than an exhaustive list of prompt variations.
- Record the baseline. Save the page and its technical findings. Collect a small set of relevant answers separately, with the prompts and collection context attached.
- Fix a concrete gap. Resolve an access issue, explain an unclear service or add evidence for a claim. Name the changed page and what a reviewer should now be able to verify.
- Repeat and follow the outcome. Recheck the page and repeat the answer sample. Track relevant traffic and lead quality alongside visibility; explain what remains uncertain.
AI Page Ready supports that first diagnosis with a page-readiness audit and, when enabled, a separate AI Search Visibility report. Agencies can use the embedded audit widget to collect a prospect’s details with the findings, then decide where a deeper engagement would help.
Common questions about SEO, AEO and GEO
What is the difference between AEO, GEO and SEO?
SEO improves discovery and performance in organic search. AEO emphasizes accurate visibility in answer experiences. GEO emphasizes visibility in generated responses. AEO and GEO overlap substantially, and their definitions vary across the industry. Google considers optimization for its AI search features part of SEO.
Are AEO and GEO the same thing?
They often describe the same practical work. Some people reserve AEO for direct answers and GEO for generated responses; others use AEO for both. State the experience, work and measurement you mean instead of assuming the acronym has one agreed definition.
Does GEO replace SEO?
No. Search accessibility, useful content, clear site structure and reliable evidence remain relevant. For Google’s AI search features, Google explicitly describes the work as SEO. Other AI products have their own retrieval systems and controls.
What do AI SEO and LLMO mean?
AI SEO can mean optimizing for AI search or using AI tools to perform SEO work. LLMO stands for large language model optimization and is commonly used for efforts to improve how LLM-based products retrieve or represent information. These labels need a stated scope; they do not establish a separate, standardized set of ranking rules.
Does adding schema or llms.txt guarantee AI citations?
No. Google says its generative search features require neither special schema nor llms.txt. Relevant structured data can support ordinary search features, but it should match the visible page. Other products may use different systems; no file or markup guarantees that an independent assistant will cite you.
Is an AI readiness score the same as AI visibility?
No. Readiness is a diagnostic assessment of a page. Visibility records what appeared in sampled answers. Neither establishes traffic or revenue. Record the questions, platform, date and evidence, then measure visits and business outcomes separately.
Sources and further reading
Sources checked October 16, 2026. Platform documentation describes that platform; the research paper describes its experiments. HubSpot is included as evidence of industry terminology, rather than an independent technical standard.
- Google Search CentralOptimizing your website for generative AI features on Google Search
Google’s own framing of SEO, AEO and GEO, plus technical and content guidance.
- Google Search CentralSearch Engine Optimization (SEO) Starter Guide
The underlying work of making content discoverable and useful in search.
- Google Search CentralFeatured snippets and your website
How Google selects featured snippets; publishers cannot mark a page as a featured snippet.
- Aggarwal et al. · KDD 2024GEO: Generative Engine Optimization
First submitted November 2023. Defines the research framework and its experimental visibility metrics.
- HubSpot · industry usageAEO vs. GEO explained: What marketers need to know now
One vendor’s explicit terminology choices and acknowledgement that industry usage varies.
- Microsoft BingIntroducing AI Performance in Bing Webmaster Tools
First-party citation reporting and the distinction between citation counts and rankings.
The Harbor Cycles interfaces and numerical sample are illustrative; they are not customer results or a platform performance study.