SEO vs AEO vs GEO: What Actually Works

The short answer

SEO: rank in search results.
AEO: be the direct answer.
GEO: be mentioned by AI tools.
They overlap heavily. Google's own guide treats them all as SEO. The basics still do most of the work: be crawlable, be useful, have real facts, and be mentioned by others.

What each term means

	SEO	AEO	GEO
Stands for	Search engine optimisation	Answer engine optimisation	Generative engine optimisation
The goal	Rank in the results	Be picked as the answer	Be mentioned in AI replies
Where	Google, Bing	Featured answers, voice	ChatGPT, Google AI, Perplexity
Measured by	Rankings and clicks	Answers won	Mentions and citations

What Google says

Google's 2026 guide on AI optimisation treats this as ordinary SEO. It asks for original, useful content and normal technical eligibility, and it says that special AI files, chopped-up pages and fake mentions don't help. Google also warns against mass-producing pages for variations of a search.

What the research found

Treat these as hints rather than laws, since AI answers change quickly and many of these studies come from companies that sell related tools.

Quotes, statistics and sources. A research paper on GEO found that adding quotations raised visibility in AI answers by about 41%, statistics by about 31%, and cited sources by about 28%, in its test setting.
Third-party mentions. Research on AI search suggests engines favour earned media, and Ahrefs found brand mentions correlate strongly with appearing in AI Overviews.
Freshness. Ahrefs reports that pages cited by AI tools are about 26% fresher than ordinary results.
Comparison pages. Siege Media found sites with many honest "X vs Y" pages got far more AI sessions. That's a correlation, and big sites have many reasons to do well.
Schema. A controlled Ahrefs test didn't find that schema raised AI citations.

What to do, in order

Be reachable. Check that Googlebot, Bingbot and AI crawlers aren't blocked. Some hosting and security settings block them by default, and this is the most common avoidable failure.
Put your text in the HTML. Most AI crawlers don't appear to run JavaScript. If your content only appears after scripts run, they may never see it. We tested this.
Answer first. Put the direct answer at the top, and then explain it. Use the question as a heading.
Publish facts only you have. Your prices, your process, your tests, your local knowledge. That's what's worth quoting.
Show who's behind it. A real named person, with public proof.
Get mentioned elsewhere. Directories, local news, and sites your buyers already trust.
Keep it current. Update pages for real, and show the date.
Test it. Ask AI tools your buyers' questions each month, and record what comes back.

What to ignore

"Secret" AI markup or a magic file
Guarantees of being recommended by ChatGPT
Hundreds of near-identical pages for different cities
Fake reviews, mentions and AI-written spam

For a small local business

Don't overthink this. A correct Google profile, real reviews, a clear website with prices, and listings on the major directories will do most of what's useful. In a small test we ran, Perplexity answered one local question by quoting a Justdial listing with many ratings. Local AI answers often come from there.

Common questions

What is the difference between SEO, AEO and GEO?

SEO is about ranking in search results. AEO, answer engine optimisation, is about being picked as the direct answer. GEO, generative engine optimisation, is about being mentioned by AI tools like ChatGPT. They overlap heavily, and Google treats all of them as SEO.

Is SEO dead because of AI?

No. Google's own guidance says the same basics apply to its AI features: pages must be indexed and eligible to appear with a snippet. AI tools also lean on search indexes. What's changing is how people get answers, which makes being quotable and being mentioned more useful.

Do I need an llms.txt file?

No. Google says you don't need one for its AI features, and Ahrefs reported that about 97% of llms.txt files get no requests at all. It's harmless and cheap to add, but don't pay anyone for it.

Does schema markup help with AI answers?

It's useful for clarity, but don't expect much. A controlled Ahrefs test didn't find that adding schema raised AI citations. FAQ rich results also stopped appearing in Google on 7 May 2026.

SEO, AEO and GEO: what's the difference, and what actually works?