SEO gets your page ranked in classic search results. AEO (answer engine optimisation) gets a direct answer from your page lifted into featured snippets, People Also Ask boxes, voice assistants and AI summaries. GEO (generative engine optimisation) gets your brand cited inside the answers that ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Overviews generate. They share one foundation and differ in goal, levers and measurement. Most brands need all three in different proportions, and the proportion depends on how your buyers search.
The one-table version
| SEO | AEO | GEO | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Goal | A high position in the results list | Your answer shown directly in the results | Your brand cited in a generated answer |
| Where it shows | Blue links, Shopping, Maps | Featured snippets, People Also Ask, voice, AI summaries quoting a page | ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Google AI Overviews and AI Mode |
| Main levers | Crawlability, speed, content depth, links | Direct answers, question headings, FAQ and HowTo schema | Evidence, structure, entity consistency, third-party authority, crawler access |
| Typical first win | Technical fixes, expanded thin pages | Rewriting the first 60 words of key pages | Numbers instead of adjectives, schema, open crawlers |
| How to measure | Positions, clicks, impressions in Search Console | Snippets and PAA owned, question-query clicks | Citation rate across a fixed prompt set, monthly |
| Time to movement | Weeks to months | Days to weeks for snippets once ranking on page one | Days to weeks on live-retrieval engines; months on Google |
What they share
All three start with the same conditions. The page must be indexed. It must load fast and render without depending on JavaScript. It must say something specific. It must carry structured data that matches the visible text. And the brand must be described consistently across the web. Google’s own guidance for AI features is explicit that there are no AI-specific technical requirements beyond what Search already needs. In practice, a site that is technically healthy, written for the reader and marked up properly is already most of the way to all three.
Where they differ
SEO is about the list
Classic SEO still matters because the list still exists, and because every AI feature draws from it. Technical health, content depth, internal links and backlinks decide whether you are in the pool at all. A site that ranks on page three will not be cited by anything.
AEO is about the lift
Answer engines lift a passage. They prefer a passage that answers the question in the heading, in 40 to 60 words, followed by detail. FAQ schema tells them which passages are answers. The quickest AEO win on most sites is embarrassingly small: rewrite the opening paragraph of each service page so it answers the question instead of introducing the company.
GEO is about the citation
Generative engines compose. They read several sources and decide which to credit. That decision leans on evidence (numbers, dates, specifics), authority (what third parties say) and entity clarity (the engine knowing exactly who you are). GEO adds off-site work that AEO does not need: reviews, listings, mentions, data that others cite.
SEO gets you into the pool. AEO gets you lifted. GEO gets you named.
Which one do you need?
| If your buyers… | Start with | Then add |
|---|---|---|
| Search product names and compare prices (ecommerce) | SEO plus Product schema | GEO for “best X for Y” questions |
| Ask “how much”, “how long”, “which is best” (services) | AEO | GEO for shortlist questions |
| Ask ChatGPT or Perplexity for recommendations (B2B, SaaS, premium) | GEO | AEO on the pages the engines quote |
| Search “near me” and use voice | AEO plus local schema | SEO for the local pack |
| Already rank well but clicks are falling | GEO | AEO to win the lifted passage |
A worked example from a services website
A 73-page services website had about 290 words per page, no schema and six blog posts. The SEO work expanded each page to between 1,250 and 2,100 words and cut homepage load from 489 ms to 197 ms. The AEO work rewrote every page to open with the answer and added FAQPage schema to all 73. The GEO work put first-party numbers and reviewer schema on every URL. The blog grew from 6 to 56 question-led articles. Three disciplines, one project, one set of pages. The full study is on the work page.
Common mistakes
- Buying GEO without SEO. If the page is not indexed and snippet-eligible, no amount of GEO helps.
- Schema that does not match the page. Engines cross-check. FAQ schema for questions the page does not answer is worse than none.
- Hiding the answer to protect the enquiry. Pages that refuse to say “how much” lose the lift to a competitor who says it.
- Measuring GEO with screenshots. One prompt on one day proves nothing. A fixed prompt set, re-run monthly, does.
- Promising rankings or citations. Nobody controls the engines. Promise the audit, the fixes and the reporting.
Not sure which you need?
Send your URL. The free check tells you where you are lifted, where you are cited, and what to fix first.
Get the free checkFrequently asked questions
Is AEO the same as GEO?
No. AEO targets answer boxes and lifted passages in search engines and assistants. GEO targets citations inside fully generated answers. The on-page work overlaps; GEO adds authority work off the site.
Do I need a separate agency for each?
No, and it is usually worse to split them, because the same pages carry all three. One team with one prompt set and one Search Console account can report on all of it.
How do I know if AI search is costing me clicks?
In Search Console, look for queries where impressions are flat or rising while clicks fall. Then search those queries yourself: if an AI Overview or an AI answer appears and you are not cited, you have found the gap.
Related: What is GEO?, How to get cited in AI Overviews, ChatGPT and Perplexity, our SEO, AEO and GEO services.