SEO vs AEO vs GEO: how to get found on Google and cited by AI search

Key terms explained (23)

SEO

Search engine optimisation: the work that helps your pages show up in Google’s regular search results.

AEO

Answer engine optimisation: helping your content get picked as the single direct answer, such as Google’s answer box or a voice assistant reply.

GEO

Generative engine optimisation: helping AI tools such as ChatGPT and Google’s AI Overviews quote and link to your content.

AI Overviews

The AI-written summaries Google shows at the top of some search results, with links to the pages they draw from.

URL

A web address, such as remarcatapang.com/playbooks/.

XML sitemap

A file that lists the pages on your site so search engines can find them. Plugins such as Yoast SEO create it automatically.

robots.txt

A small file at the root of your site that tells search engine and AI crawlers which pages they may visit.

Crawler

A program that search engines and AI companies use to read web pages. GPTBot and OAI-SearchBot are OpenAI’s crawlers.

Indexing

When a search engine stores a page so it can show it in results. A page that isn’t indexed can’t rank.

Structured data (schema)

Code that labels the information on a page, such as your business name, hours or an article’s author, so search engines understand it.

Featured snippet

The answer box Google sometimes shows above the regular results, quoting one page directly.

Snippet

The short description shown under a page’s title in search results.

Conversion

When a visitor does what you want them to do, such as booking, buying or filling in a form.

Organic

Unpaid. Organic search results or social posts are the ones you don’t pay to show.

Impressions

The number of times a page, ad or listing was shown to someone.

Citation (local SEO)

A mention of your business name, address and phone number on another website, such as a directory.

Service area

The towns or region a business travels to. Service-area businesses can hide their address on Google Business Profile.

Google Business Profile

Your free business listing on Google Search and Maps, with your hours, reviews and photos.

Search Console

Google’s free tool that shows how your site appears in search, which queries bring visitors and any indexing problems.

Entity

Something search engines recognise as a distinct real thing, such as a person, business or place.

Plugin

An add-on that gives a WordPress site extra features, such as SEO settings or forms.

AI agent

An AI tool that can carry out tasks for you, such as replying to messages or updating records, not just answer questions.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions.

What do SEO, AEO and GEO mean?

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the work of getting a page to appear in the list of search results. Answer engine optimization (AEO) is the work of getting a page chosen as the single direct answer, such as a featured snippet, a “People also ask” box or a voice assistant reply. Generative engine optimization (GEO) is the work of getting your content cited when an AI system such as Google’s AI Overviews, ChatGPT search, Perplexity or Microsoft Copilot writes an answer in its own words.

Is GEO replacing SEO?

No. Google’s own guidance on AI features and your website says there are no extra requirements for appearing in AI Overviews or AI Mode. A page needs to be indexed and eligible to show a snippet in regular search, and the same best practices apply. Google also states that you don’t need special AI files or new schema types to be included.

What changes is the reader’s behaviour. People used to open three results and compare. More often now they read one generated answer and act on it. That raises the value of being one of the few sources an answer cites, and it rewards pages that are specific enough to quote.

How do AI search engines choose what to cite?

Most AI search tools work in two steps. First they retrieve a set of pages for the question, using a search index. Then a language model writes an answer from those pages and links to the ones it used. So you have to pass two tests: be retrievable, then be quotable.

The best public evidence on the second test is the paper GEO: Generative Engine Optimization by researchers from Princeton, Georgia Tech, the Allen Institute for AI and IIT Delhi. They tested different ways of rewriting content and measured how often it appeared in generated answers. Adding statistics, adding quotations from relevant sources and citing sources produced the largest gains, with visibility improving by up to 40%. Traditional keyword stuffing performed poorly. The effect also varied by topic, so treat these as strong defaults, not guarantees.

Step 1: Make sure search and AI crawlers can reach your site

Start with access, because nothing else works without it.

• Google. Verify your site in Google Search Console, submit your sitemap and use URL Inspection to confirm that your key pages are indexed.
• Bing. Do the same in Bing Webmaster Tools. Microsoft Copilot is built on Bing’s index, so it is worth the ten minutes.
• ChatGPT search. OpenAI’s crawler documentation explains that sites which block OAI-SearchBot are not shown in ChatGPT search answers. GPTBot is a separate crawler used for model training, and you can allow one without the other.
• Perplexity. Perplexity’s crawler guide recommends allowing PerplexityBot so your site can be surfaced and linked in its results.

Open yourdomain.com/robots.txt in a browser. If you see a blanket block, or if a security plugin is blocking AI bots, add explicit rules:

User-agent: OAI-SearchBot
Allow: /

User-agent: PerplexityBot
Allow: /

Step 2: Write answer-first pages

Featured snippets and AI answers both lift short, self-contained passages. Structure each important page so those passages are easy to find:

1. Use the customer’s question as the heading. “How much does a roof inspection cost in Ontario?” beats “Our pricing”.
2. Answer in the first two or three sentences under that heading, in plain language, with the number or the yes/no included.
3. Then expand with the detail: what changes the price, the steps, the exceptions.
4. Use lists and tables for steps and comparisons. They are easy for people to scan and for systems to extract.

Google explains how it selects snippets in its featured snippets documentation. You can’t mark a passage as a snippet. You can only make the best answer on the page obvious.

Step 3: Add facts an AI can quote

This is where the GEO research is most useful. Go through your top pages and replace general claims with specifics:

• Prices or price ranges, timelines, service areas and guarantees.
• Numbers from your own work: jobs completed, average turnaround, years in business.
• Links to the primary source whenever you state a rule, a standard or a statistic.
• A named author with a short bio, and a visible “last updated” date.

Google’s guidance on helpful, reliable, people-first content asks the same thing in different words: show who wrote it, show first-hand experience, and make trust easy to check.

Step 4: Use structured data for clarity, not for tricks

Structured data (schema markup) is code that labels what a page is about. It still matters for describing your business, your articles and your products in a way machines can read without guessing. Two things have changed, though:

• Google retired FAQ rich results in 2026, so FAQ markup no longer earns expanded listings in Google Search. FAQ sections are still worth writing because they answer real questions in a quotable format.
• Google states that no special schema is required for AI Overviews or AI Mode. Schema supports understanding. It does not buy inclusion.

For most small businesses, the useful set is LocalBusiness or Organization on the home and contact pages, Article with an author on blog posts, and Product or Service where relevant. Google’s introduction to structured data lists the supported types. On WordPress, Yoast SEO will generate it for you. Test the result with the Rich Results Test.

Step 5: Be the same business everywhere

AI systems build a picture of a business from many places: your site, your Google Business Profile, directories, reviews and social profiles. When those disagree, confidence drops. Make your name, address, phone number, hours and service list match exactly across all of them, and keep the profile active with current photos and replies to reviews.

How do I measure AEO and GEO?

• Search Console. Google reports traffic from AI Overviews and AI Mode inside the regular Performance report, under the Web search type. There is no separate AI filter, so watch impressions and clicks on your question-style queries.
• Analytics. In Google Analytics 4, check referral traffic from sources such as chatgpt.com, perplexity.ai and copilot.microsoft.com.
• Manual prompt checks. Once a month, ask your ten most important customer questions in Google, ChatGPT and Perplexity. Record whether you are cited, and who is cited instead. It is manual, but it shows the trend and shows you which competitors’ pages to study.

A 30-day checklist

1. Week 1. Verify the site in Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools. Check robots.txt for blocked AI crawlers. Fix any indexing errors on your main pages.
2. Week 2. List the 20 questions customers ask most. Map each one to a page. Rewrite the top five pages in answer-first format.
3. Week 3. Add specifics and sources to those pages. Add author details and updated dates. Add LocalBusiness and Article schema and test it.
4. Week 4. Align your business details across your site, Google Business Profile and main directories. Run your first prompt check and save the results as your baseline.

Tools for the job

Plans and pricing change. Check each tool's site for current details.

Frequently asked questions

Related playbooks

• Local SEO checklist for service businesses: The 30 checks that move a service business up in Google Maps and local results: profile, website, reviews, listings and tracking, in the order to do them.
• How to write a blog post that ranks on Google and gets cited by AI: A repeatable nine-step method: search intent, outline, answer-first writing, evidence, on-page SEO, images and the checklist to run before you publish.
• How to write a monthly marketing report clients actually read: A one-page structure, the metrics that belong on it, the UTM setup that makes the numbers trustworthy, and a free tool stack to build it.

Browse every playbook on search and AI visibility, or see all marketing playbooks.

Sources

1. AI features and your websiteGoogle Search Central
2. GEO: Generative Engine Optimization (Aggarwal et al.)arXiv
3. Overview of OpenAI crawlersOpenAI
4. Perplexity crawlersPerplexity
5. Featured snippets and your websiteGoogle Search Central
6. Creating helpful, reliable, people-first contentGoogle Search Central
7. FAQ structured data (retirement notice)Google Search Central