AEO(Answer Engine Optimization)
Also called: answer engine optimisation
Definition
AEO, short for Answer Engine Optimization, is the optimization of content for engines that answer a question directly instead of offering a list of links. The term is older than GEO: before ChatGPT, it already described work on Google's featured snippets and on voice assistants like Siri or Alexa.
With the arrival of generative AI, AEO and GEO overlap heavily, and many people use them as synonyms. The nuance lies in where they come from: AEO starts from the question and the short answer, GEO starts from generative engines and the way they assemble their answers from several sources.
Example
A page that answers “how much does an online accountant cost?” in two clear sentences, right under its title, is doing AEO: it makes it easy for an engine to reuse its answer.
What it means for your AI visibility
Whether you call it AEO or GEO, the goal is the same: your answer, and your brand, are the ones the engine picks up. What matters is measuring whether that's the case, question by question.
Related terms
- GEOGEO covers the practices that make a brand visible in the answers of generative AI such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude or Perplexity.
- LLMOLLMO is the optimization of a brand and its content for large language models, the ones that power ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini.
- SEOSEO optimizes a site for traditional search engines. It is still the foundation of GEO, but it's no longer enough to get recommended by AI.
- Zero-click searchA zero-click search ends without the user clicking a link, because the answer appears directly: a snippet, an AI Overview or an AI answer.
- Citable contentCitable content is written so AI can reuse it as is: one idea per paragraph, precise facts, a direct answer to a question.
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