What Are GEO, AEO and SEO? Definitions and Differences
SEO helps search engines understand and rank your pages, AEO makes your content the direct answer, and GEO gets your content cited by generative AI such as ChatGPT. One table compares the goals, targets and success metrics of GEO, AEO and SEO.
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GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) is the practice of getting content cited by generative AI such as ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews; AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) is the practice of making content the direct answer in search engines or AI assistants; SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the practice of helping search engines understand your content and rank it in search results. They relate like this: SEO gets a page found, AEO makes it usable as an answer, and GEO gets it cited in AI-generated answers.
What is SEO?
SEO is search engine optimization. Google's SEO Starter Guide defines it as helping search engines understand your content, and helping users find your site and decide whether they should visit it.
SEO is measured by rankings, clicks and organic traffic. It is about whether users click on you among 10 blue links.
What is AEO?
AEO is answer engine optimization: making your content the source of a direct answer. It is an industry term with no single authoritative definition; it first referred to Google featured snippets and voice assistants, and now also covers answers given by AI assistants.
Google describes featured snippets as special boxes where the format of a regular search result is reversed, showing the descriptive snippet first. AEO is about writing answers that can be lifted out directly: a direct answer at the top, a question-and-answer structure and definition sentences.
What is GEO?
GEO is generative engine optimization. The term was introduced by Aggarwal et al. in a 2023 paper published at KDD in 2024, which defines GEO as a way to help content creators improve the visibility of their content in generative engine responses.
Generative engines retrieve several sources and then use a large language model to combine them into one answer. The paper's experiments on GEO-bench found that adding citations, quotations and statistics raised content visibility in generative engine answers by 30–40% relative to the original, while keyword stuffing, a classic SEO tactic, did worse than no optimization.
GEO vs AEO vs SEO compared
| SEO | AEO | GEO | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Full name | Search Engine Optimization | Answer Engine Optimization | Generative Engine Optimization |
| Goal | Rank in search results | Become the direct answer | Be cited in AI-generated answers |
| Main interfaces | Google and Bing results | Featured snippets, voice and AI assistants | ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, Gemini, Claude |
| What users see | 10 links | 1 answer snippet | 1 answer combining several sources |
| Success metric | Rankings, clicks, organic traffic | Whether you become the snippet or answer | Whether you are mentioned, recommended, cited |
| Typical tactics | Keywords, technical SEO, backlinks | Direct answer at the top, Q&A structure | Specific numbers, credible sources, crawlable by AI bots |
Do they replace each other?
No, they build on each other. SEO is the foundation: Google explains that appearing in AI Overviews has no additional requirements, but a page must be indexed and eligible to be shown with a snippet to become a supporting link.
AEO gives a page an answer that can be lifted out directly, and GEO makes sure that answer is chosen, with your link, when AI combines several sources. In practice you can work in order:
- Get SEO right first: make sure pages are indexed and robots.txt allows search and AI crawlers
- Then AEO: a 2–3 sentence direct answer at the top, a Q&A-style FAQ, clear definition sentences
- Then GEO: add specific numbers and credible sources, and measure whether AI actually cites you
How do you measure GEO and AEO results?
SEO has rankings and traffic; GEO and AEO are judged by the AI answers themselves. llmion's BVS score asks 5 AI platforms every week in live-search mode and measures whether your brand is mentioned, where, whether it is recommended or mentioned in passing, and whether the sources the AI cites include your website. See the BVS methodology for details.
Before publishing, AIF checks the content format: the direct answer and FAQ that AEO needs, and the numbers and source citations that GEO needs.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: What is GEO?
GEO is generative engine optimization: the practice of getting content cited in answers from generative AI such as ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews.
The term was introduced by Aggarwal et al. in 2023, in a paper published at KDD 2024. The study found that adding citations, quotations and statistics raised visibility by 30–40% relative to the original.
Q: What is AEO?
AEO is answer engine optimization: the practice of making content the direct answer in search engines or AI assistants.
AEO is an industry term with no single authoritative definition. It first referred to Google featured snippets and voice assistants, and now also covers answers given by AI assistants.
Q: What is SEO?
SEO is search engine optimization, which Google defines as helping search engines understand your content and helping users find your site.
SEO is measured by rankings, clicks and organic traffic, and it is the foundation for AEO and GEO: a page that is not indexed cannot be a source in AI Overviews.
Q: What is the biggest difference between GEO and SEO?
SEO aims to rank in search results; GEO aims to be cited in AI-generated answers.
In SEO, users see 10 links and choose for themselves; in GEO, the AI has already combined the answer and cites only a few sources. The GEO study also found that keyword stuffing performs worse than no optimization in generative engines.
Q: How is GEO different from AEO?
AEO aims to be a single direct answer; GEO aims to be cited in an AI answer that combines several sources.
They overlap heavily, and both need a direct answer at the top and a Q&A structure. GEO puts more emphasis on being crawlable by AI bots and on specific numbers and credible sources, because generative engines compare several sources before deciding whom to cite.
Q: Do I still need SEO if I do GEO?
Yes. SEO is a precondition for GEO.
Google says a page must be indexed and eligible for a snippet to be a supporting link in AI Overviews, and Gemini's grounding is also built on Google Search. Without an SEO foundation, GEO has little to work with.
Q: Can small brands do GEO?
Yes, and research suggests smaller sites benefit more.
The GEO study found that for a site ranked fifth in search results, adding citations raised visibility by 115.1%. How specific and credible your content is can partly make up for differences in site size and ranking.
Q: How do I know whether GEO is working?
Measure the AI answers directly: whether your brand is mentioned, where, and whether the sources the AI cites include your website.
llmion's BVS score measures 5 AI platforms automatically every week and tracks changes 4 weeks after you publish, so you can judge GEO results from measured data.
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