AEO (answer engine optimization) is the work of getting an answer engine to use your content as the direct answer to a question. An answer engine is any system that answers instead of listing links: Google's featured snippet, a voice assistant, Google's AI Overview, ChatGPT, Gemini or Perplexity.
Today it is used almost as a synonym of GEO, although it came first.
AEO, SEO and GEO: the differences
| SEO | AEO | GEO | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Goal | Rank pages and earn clicks | Be the answer to a question | Get AI to name and cite you |
| Where | Organic results | Featured snippets, voice and assistants | Answers from ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google's AI |
| How many answers | Ten results per page | Usually one | One answer that names several brands |
In practice AEO and GEO are worked the same way. What changes is how you measure them: in AEO, whether you are the answer; in GEO, in what share of answers you are named and in what position.
Which content answer engines pick
A short answer first
The question in a heading and the answer in the first sentence, readable on its own. The rest of the paragraph can add nuance. It is what already worked for featured snippets.
Concrete facts
Figures, prices, timelines, years, number of clients. An answer engine quotes facts it can attribute to a source, not adjectives. "Over 300 clients since 2012" gets quoted; "industry leaders" does not.
Your customers' real questions
The ones they send by email, ask on calls or in the chat, with their answer. Marked up with FAQ schema when they really are frequent questions.
A clear entity
The engine has to know who you are to attribute the answer to you: name, what you do, where, and official profiles linked. That is what entity SEO works on.
A site that can be read
robots.txt has to let AI crawlers in and the text has to be in the HTML, not only behind JavaScript: most AI crawlers do not run it.
How to measure AEO
- List the questions customers ask before buying, without your brand.
- Ask them on Google and on the AI engines and note who gives the answer or whom it names.
- Repeat every week or month, because answers change.
- Compare with your competitors: how many answers are theirs and how many yours.
The free GEO audit does both parts at once: it checks whether your site is ready to be the answer and asks ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google whether they already name you.
Common mistakes
- Writing the answer at the end of a long text instead of at the start.
- Answering with generic statements that fit any company.
- Making up FAQs nobody asks to fill a section.
- Blocking AI crawlers without knowing it, from the CDN or a security plugin.
If you want us to work on it with you and measure it every week, that is what our GEO and AI SEO service does.
Frequently Asked Questions
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AEO stands for answer engine optimization: the work of getting a search engine or an assistant to use your content as the direct answer to a question, whether in a Google featured snippet, a voice assistant or the answer of an AI such as ChatGPT.
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They overlap almost completely. AEO started with featured snippets and voice assistants, where there was a single answer. GEO (generative engine optimization) is about engines that write their own answer from several sources and name several brands. The techniques are the same; what you measure changes.
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No. Answer engines search the web before they answer, so a page that does not rank for related searches has fewer chances of becoming the answer. AEO works on top of SEO: how the answer is written and whether you can measure it.
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Check whether AI crawlers can get in, whether your text reads without JavaScript, whether you have company structured data and answered questions, and whether AI engines already name you. The free GEO audit measures it in a minute and gives you a score from 0 to 100.