AEO vs GEO vs SEO: what each one actually does
SEO (search engine optimization) gets your pages ranked in a list of links. AEO (answer engine optimization) gets your content selected and used when an AI system builds an answer. GEO (generative engine optimization) is the broader practice of getting your brand named inside AI-generated text, with or without a link. They overlap, but they are optimised with different techniques and measured with different numbers.
SEO
AEO
GEO
Optimizes for
Google & Bing rankings
AI answers, featured snippets, voice
Brand mentions in generated text
Unit of success
A ranking position
Your content quoted or cited in an answer
Your brand named as a recommendation
Key levers
Technical health, links, keywords
Direct answers, structure, schema, extractable claims
Third-party sources, entity data, consistent facts across the web
Measured by
Rankings and organic traffic
Citation and answer-inclusion rates
Share of voice across tracked prompts
PERFORMANCE
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Why ranking first no longer means being recommended
—— Google selects pages; answer engines select claims. An AI system building an answer looks for statements it can corroborate across several independent sources — reviews, directories, comparisons, publications — not just for the page that ranks first. That is why a brand can dominate traditional search and still be absent from every ChatGPT answer in its category: nobody else on the web is saying what its own website says.
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Do you need all three?
—— Usually, but not equally and not at once. If your technical SEO is broken, AI crawlers cannot read you either — fix that first. If your category is already being answered by AI systems and you are not in the answer, AEO and GEO are the priority, and the first step is measurement: knowing which prompts you appear in, which you don't, and which sources drive the answers. That is what our monitoring plans exist for, from €165 per month.
Schedule a short call and we will help you define the right scope: website, campaigns, AEO, LLM Intelligence or ongoing growth support.
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