AEO vs SEO vs GEO: what they mean and which you need
Three acronyms, one goal: being found when it matters. Here's what each one actually does, where they overlap, and how to spend.
SEO earns rankings in search results. AEO earns the answer spot when someone asks a question. GEO earns citations inside AI-generated content. They share ~70% of their foundations — the businesses winning right now run them as one program, not three.
Search Engine Optimisation
The established discipline: earning rankings in search results through technical health, relevant content and authority (links). Still the largest source of trackable commercial traffic — and the index AI assistants retrieve from.
Answer Engine Optimisation
Optimising to BE the answer when someone asks a question — in AI assistants, voice search and featured snippets. Built on entity clarity, structured data, third-party trust and answer-shaped content.
Generative Engine Optimisation
Optimising to be cited inside longer AI-generated content — research summaries, comparisons, buying guides assembled by tools like Perplexity or Deep Research. Rewards quotable statistics, original data and clear sourcing.
The overlap is the strategy
Roughly 70% of the work serves all three disciplines at once: a technically sound site, consistent business information, structured data, credible third-party mentions, and content that answers real questions directly. The remaining 30% is channel-specific — keyword targeting for SEO, citation-share tracking for AEO, quotability and source formatting for GEO. That's why splitting them across three vendors usually wastes money: the foundations get built three times.
How to budget
If your enquiries still come overwhelmingly from Google's classic results, weight toward SEO and add AEO foundations now — the shift to AI answers is a when, not an if. If you're already seeing "I asked ChatGPT and it suggested you", weight toward AEO/GEO before your competitors notice what's happening. Either way, review quarterly: the share of searches happening inside AI assistants is climbing, and budgets should follow attention.
Go deeper: the complete AEO guide — or see how ChatGPT actually picks who to recommend.
Common questions
Are AEO and GEO the same thing?
They overlap heavily. AEO focuses on being the direct answer to questions; GEO focuses on being cited within longer AI-generated content. In practice most of the work — entity clarity, structured data, citations, answer-shaped content — serves both.
Should I stop doing SEO?
No. SEO remains the foundation — AI assistants retrieve from search indexes, so pages that rank are pages that get cited. The right move is extending SEO with AEO and GEO, not replacing it.
How should I split budget between SEO and AEO?
For most businesses, a 60/40 split toward whichever channel currently drives more qualified enquiries, reviewed quarterly. Foundational work — schema, entity consistency, answer-shaped content — benefits both simultaneously.