SEO, AEO and GEO, compared plainly
Search engine optimisation (SEO) earns a place in Google's list of links. Answer engine optimisation (AEO) earns the direct answer: the featured snippet, the voice reply, the AI summary. Generative engine optimisation (GEO) earns a citation inside answers written by assistants such as ChatGPT and Perplexity. They overlap by more than half: a clear, answer-first page on a consistent site serves all three.
In detail
The three, row by row
| Search engine optimisation | Answer and generative engine optimisation | |
|---|---|---|
| What it wins | A position in a list of links | A sentence quoted inside an answer |
| Where it shows | Google and Bing results | AI summaries, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude and voice assistants |
| What it rewards | Relevance, earned links and a fast, crawlable site | A direct answer, consistent facts and a named source |
| How it is measured | Rankings, visits and enquiries in Search Console | Asking the assistants the questions and recording who they cite |
| Where it fails | A page that answers a question nobody asks | A brand described differently in different places |
Is AEO the same as GEO?
Nearly. Answer engine optimisation is the older term, from the years when the target was the featured snippet and the voice answer. Generative engine optimisation arrived with assistants that compose an answer from several sources and cite them. The work is almost identical: answer the question first, state facts with dates, keep one description of the business everywhere, and mark the page up so a machine can read it. Agencies selling them as separate services are mostly selling the same hours twice.
Do you still need SEO if buyers ask ChatGPT?
Yes. Google's AI summaries draw on pages its ordinary ranking already trusts, and assistants that search the web start from search results too. A site that cannot be crawled, loads slowly or has no page for the question will not be cited however well it is written. Search work is the floor the other two stand on. What changes is the standard of the writing: the first paragraph has to be good enough to be lifted whole.
One method that serves all three
List the questions
What buyers type into Google and what they ask an assistant, which is usually longer and more specific.
One page per question
The answer in the first paragraph, the detail below it, and headings that are the follow-up questions.
Facts with dates
Prices, places, results and who wrote it, stated plainly so a quote stays true out of context.
One description everywhere
The same name, address and line about what you do on the site, the listing, the profiles and the directories.
Measure both ways
Search Console for the search side; the buyer's questions put to the assistants each month for the answer side.
Where we sit
We sell this as one piece of work, not three. Starter's search option is $2,000 a month; Standard, at $4,000, adds the answer-engine entries and a visibility report that records what the assistants say about you. We do not publish a figure for how often assistants cite us, because we have not measured it to a standard we would defend.
If an agency quotes you separately for all three, ask which hours of the work differ. The honest answer is the measurement and a little of the markup.
The questions that follow.
What does GEO stand for?
Generative engine optimisation: the work of being cited in answers written by AI assistants and AI search summaries.
What does AEO stand for?
Answer engine optimisation: the work of being the direct answer, whether in a featured snippet, a voice reply or an AI summary.
Which should a small business start with?
Search engine optimisation, written to the answer-first standard. It covers most of the other two, and its results can be read in Google's own data.
Can anyone guarantee an AI citation?
No. Assistants change their answers from week to week. A guarantee against that is fiction; a monthly record of what they say is not.
Does a local business need GEO?
Rarely as separate work. For a shop, clinic or cafe the assistants lean on the Google Business listing, reviews and the website, so a complete listing and answer-first pages do most of the job.
How do you check what AI assistants say about a business?
Ask them the questions a buyer would, in a fresh session, every month, and write down which businesses they name and which pages they cite. That record is the report.
The price is published.
Where this leads.
No deck. No discovery theatre. One metric, one date, in the contract.