Search is splitting in two. Alongside the familiar list of blue links, people now get direct answers, from Google's AI overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini. Optimising for those answers is a new discipline with two new acronyms. Here's what they mean.
What is AEO?
Answer Engine Optimization is optimising so your content becomes the answer to a question, not just a result to scroll. It means structuring content around real questions, giving clear, direct answers, and marking it up so machines can extract it.
What is GEO?
Generative Engine Optimization goes a step further: getting large language models to cite you when they generate an answer about your topic. That depends on being clearly written, well-structured, factually consistent and referenced across the web.
How they differ from SEO
Classic SEO competes for a ranking position. AEO and GEO compete to be the source the engine quotes. The foundations overlap, structure, clarity, authority, but the goal shifts from "rank" to "be cited".
What actually helps
- Question-led headings and direct first-sentence answers.
- Structured data (FAQ, Article, Organization schema).
- Clear, factual, jargon-free writing a model can quote.
- A machine-readable summary of who you are (we ship an
llms.txton every build).
Why act now
AI answers are still early, which means the competition is thin. The businesses structuring for it today will be the defaults tomorrow. For the practical how-to, read how to get cited by AI search, and to cover both fronts, how to show up on Google. Want it done for you? Start with an audit.