AEO
AEO — Answer Engine Optimization, also called GEO or Generative Engine Optimization — is the practice of preparing a website so that a generative model can read it, understand it and cite it inside a written answer.
It is one discipline with two names. AEO is the common form in English and GEO the one used in most other markets, and both describe the same work: optimising to be the source an answer quotes, rather than a link in a list.
How is AEO different from SEO?
SEO optimises for a ranking; AEO optimises for a citation. A search engine returns ten links and lets the reader choose. An answer engine writes one answer and names three or four sources, so the question stops being where you rank and becomes whether your content can be quoted at all.
They share foundations —a reachable site, clean markup, real content— and diverge on what they reward. Links and domain authority move rankings. Extractability, attribution and verifiability move citations, and almost nobody optimises for those.
Does AEO replace SEO?
No, it layers on top. Nothing AEO asks for harms a Google ranking, and several items help it, because the criteria for extractable content overlap with the quality signals search engines already reward.
The sensible order is to keep the SEO you have and add the parts that only matter to a model: a version of the page a crawler can read without executing JavaScript, self-contained passages, declared structured data and a consistent entity.
What does AEO actually change on a website?
Four kinds of work, in the order that moves the needle most. It is the same order as the layers of the Citability Index, because the index exists to measure exactly this.
- Let the crawlers in, and say so explicitly rather than by omission.
- Serve the content in the HTML, not only after the JavaScript runs.
- Write passages that survive being cut out of the page.
- Declare who you are, consistently, everywhere you appear.
What is this based on?
AEO is a young discipline and most of what circulates about it is opinion. These three are not: a measured study and two published specifications, all free to read in full.
- GEO: Generative Engine Optimization
The study that gave the discipline its other name, and the one that measured what actually works: citing sources, supplying data and adding quotations, for up to 40% more visibility in answers.
- schema.org
The vocabulary used to declare what a page is about in a form a machine reads without guessing. It is the technical half of entity work.
- OpenAI crawler documentation
Shows why AEO and SEO are separate problems: the crawler that gathers training data and the one that surfaces sites in answers are different bots with different rules.
Frequently asked questions about AEO
Is AEO the same thing as GEO?
- Yes. Answer Engine Optimization and Generative Engine Optimization are two names for the same discipline, and which one you hear depends on the market rather than on the method. This site uses AEO in English and GEO elsewhere, and treats them as one term with two names.
Can AEO be measured?
- The technical half can, and that is what the Citability Index does: whether a model can reach your content, read it, quote it and attribute it. Whether a model then names you in an answer is a separate measurement, because it depends on your category and on each engine's reindexing.