GEO vs. AEO vs. SEO: What’s The Difference?

The terms GEO and AEO have entered the marketing chat, and if you’re trying to make sense of whether these are distinct strategies or just rebranded SEO jargon, you’re not alone.

More users are turning to AI tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Reddit Answers to find information. This is why terms like GEO and AEO exist. They’re here to label how SEO evolves when the ‘engine’ you’re optimizing for isn’t just Google anymore. At their core, all these terms aim to achieve the same goal: making your brand or product visible. However, the platforms they refer to and the types of questions you’re optimizing for are different. 

What is Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)?

Generative Engine Optimization is the process of making your content useful, structured, and authoritative enough to be referenced by generative AI tools. Platforms like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Google SGE rely on trusted, high-quality content to generate answers to user questions.

If your content isn’t the kind of content an AI can confidently rely on, it won’t show up. Not because you’re doing anything “wrong,” but because the model doesn’t see you as a stable or helpful source.

What is Answer Engine Optimization (AEO)?

AEO is the practice of making your content easy for machines to pull into quick, direct answers. Think featured snippets, people also ask, and voice assistant responses. At its core, AEO is built for question-and-answer style content. It works best when someone is asking a simple, factual question and wants a clear, immediate response like a definition, a short explanation, or a quick step-by-step answer. 

GEO vs. AEO vs. SEO: What is the Key Difference?

When optimizing your content, you aren’t just applying SEO, AEO, or GEO tactics. Each one helps you show up in a different part of the search journey, and the advantage comes from stacking them, not choosing between them.

Feature	SEO  (Search Engine Optimization)	AEO  (Answer Engine Optimization)	GEO  (Generative Engine Optimization)
Core Goal	Rank in search results	Provide fast, direct answers	Be referenced in AI-generated summaries
Primary Platforms	Google & Bing search results	Featured snippets, voice assistants, AI Overviews	ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, SGE
Success Metrics	Rankings and organic traffic	Inclusion in snippets,  SERP, or answer boxes	Branded citations in AI-generated content
How Users Search	Keyword-based queries	Short, intent-driven questions	Conversational, complete questions
Key Tactics	On-page SEO, Technical SEO and UX	Schema mark-up, FAQ optimization	Digital PR (Backlinks), conversational phrases

Why SEO Is Essential When Optimizing For AI

Even as the search landscape evolves, strong SEO is still one of the most reliable ways to make sure your content can be found, understood, and considered by generative AI tools.

Research from Semrush shows that AI-generated answers often pull from content that already ranks highly in Google search results. This suggests there’s overlap between what Google considers high-quality content and what generative models are more likely to cite. While AI systems don’t follow Google’s rankings exactly, content that performs well in search is often easier for them to find, understand, and trust.

How to Optimize for AEO / GEO

Maintain Strong Technical Site Foundation

Why it matters: AI systems still rely on search engines to crawl, understand, and contextualize content. If your site is hard to crawl, slow to load, or poorly structured, your content is less likely to be picked up, understood, or reused.

What to do: Ensure your site is fast, mobile-friendly, indexable, and free from crawl errors. For a deeper dive into how to optimize your website for AI, check out our blog

Build E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) Signals 

Why it matters: Generative systems place high value on content that demonstrates real subject-matter expertise, accuracy, and relevance. Content that doesn’t meet those standards is less likely to be reused.

What to do: Create content that showcases credentials, experience, and trustworthy sourcing by including author bios, citations, and clear published or updated dates.

Strengthen Off-Site Signals

Why it matters: AI tools pull from across the open web. They look for brands that are mentioned, trusted, and cited by others.

What to do: Increase credibility by getting your brand mentioned and linked to by reputable sites, such as news outlets, industry blogs, and trusted partners.

Show Up Where AI Is Listening

Why it matters: LLMs learn from public conversations, especially in places like Reddit, Quora, and similar communities. Being present in these conversations can influence how your brand, category, or products are represented.

What to do: Actively contribute to forums and Q&A sites where your audience is already discussing your industry.

Want a personalized strategy for your brand? Get an AI Search Audit from WITHIN to see exactly where you stand and what to prioritize.

Let’s Chat

How to Measure GEO / AEO Success

Measuring GEO is very different from measuring traditional SEO. It’s less about rankings and clicks and more about understanding how often your brand shows up inside AI-generated answers. The goal is to see whether you are present, how you are being framed, and how your visibility compares to your competitors.

You want to track things like:

• The prompts and questions where your brand appears
• Where your competitors are showing up
• How LLMs (Large Language Models) interpret your content and how they describe you
• How often your brand is cited or referenced week over week

These signals help you understand how AI systems are using your content and where there’s room to strengthen your presence, especially as zero-click searches continue to grow and users get what they need directly from the results page without clicking through to a website.

Why Optimizing for AI Matters Now

GEO and AEO aren’t replacing SEO. They’re building on its core goal of making your content easy to find, understand, and trust. The difference now is that “findable” means more than just ranking on Google. It means showing up wherever your audience is searching.

At WITHIN, we help brands navigate how discovery is changing. Our approach brings together strong SEO fundamentals with AEO and GEO strategies, so your content doesn’t just rank in search results, but shows up in answers, summaries, and AI-driven experiences.

Let’s Chat

 

Authors
Britnee Howard, SEO Account Manager
Christina Hatzipanagiotis, SEO Account Manager