SEO, AEO and GEO are sold as three different disciplines. Google has now stated plainly that, as far as Google is concerned, they are one. This is what the three terms actually mean, where the distinction is real, and where it is marketing.
The short answer, in Google’s words
In its official AI optimisation guidance, Google addresses the terminology directly. It acknowledges that AEO means answer engine optimisation and GEO means generative engine optimisation, and then says:
“From Google Search’s perspective, optimizing for generative AI search is optimizing for the search experience, and thus still SEO.”
It goes further, explaining why: “The best practices for SEO continue to be relevant because our generative AI features on Google Search are rooted in our core Search ranking and quality systems.”
That is about as unambiguous as Google gets. AI Overviews and AI Mode are not a separate index with separate rules. They are built on the same ranking and quality systems that decide conventional results.
So if an agency is selling you AEO as a wholly new discipline requiring a wholly new budget, the source they are implicitly contradicting is Google.
What the three terms actually mean
SEO — search engine optimisation
Being findable in a list of results. The traditional discipline: crawlability, site health, content quality, relevance, authority, links. The outcome is a ranked position, and the goal is a click.
AEO — answer engine optimisation
Being the answer rather than one of the links. This covers AI Overviews, featured snippets, and voice results. The outcome is being quoted and attributed. The click may or may not follow.
GEO — generative engine optimisation
Being cited by generative assistants — ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, Copilot — when someone asks them a question rather than searching. The outcome is being named in an answer that may never show a link at all.
Where they are genuinely the same
For Google specifically, the overlap is close to total, and Google’s guidance spells out what still matters:
- Unique, useful content — Google asks for content people find “unique, compelling, and useful”, with a distinctive perspective rather than commodity coverage.
- Technical fundamentals — meeting Search’s technical requirements, being crawlable, and handling JavaScript properly. A page a crawler cannot reach cannot be quoted.
- A people-first approach — focusing on what visitors find helpful rather than what a system might reward.
None of that is new. It is the same advice Google has given for a decade, restated for a new surface.
Where the distinction is still real
Here is the nuance that Google’s guidance does not cover, because it is not Google’s to cover: Google is not the only answer engine.
Google’s statement is scoped precisely — “from Google Search’s perspective”. ChatGPT, Perplexity and Claude are not Google Search. They retrieve differently, weigh sources differently, and in some cases were trained on data rather than retrieving live. Optimising for them is not identical to optimising for Google, for three reasons.
- Entity resolution matters more. An assistant asked to recommend a supplier has to be confident it knows which company you are. Contradictions between your site and your directory listings — different founding year, address, phone — reduce that confidence in a way that barely affects a blue link.
- Corroboration carries more weight. A claim repeated only on your own domain is weaker than one agreeing across independent sources. Assistants lean on agreement between sources more heavily than a ranking algorithm does.
- Extractability is decisive. A model has to lift a self-contained, confident sentence. Pages built as continuous persuasive prose are harder to quote than pages built as clear claims, questions and answers.
So the honest position is narrower than the marketing and broader than “it is all just SEO”: for Google, AEO is SEO. For everything else, it is SEO plus entity and corroboration work.
What Google explicitly says not to do
The most useful part of Google’s guidance is what it rules out. Several tactics currently being sold as AEO are named and dismissed:
- Do not create an llms.txt file. Google states plainly that Search does not use them.
- Do not artificially “chunk” your content. Breaking pages into machine-sized fragments is not something Google asks for.
- Do not rewrite content specifically for AI systems. Writing for machines rather than readers is the failure mode Google has warned about since the first content-farm updates.
- Do not chase inauthentic mentions. Manufactured citations are the new manufactured backlinks, and they will age just as badly.
If a proposal you are reading contains any of these four, you now have a source to check it against.
The three side by side
| SEO | AEO | GEO | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Where it applies | Google and Bing results pages | AI Overviews, featured snippets, voice | ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity |
| What winning looks like | A ranked position | Being quoted as the answer | Being named in a generated answer |
| Does a click follow? | Usually | Sometimes | Often not |
| Decided by | Relevance, authority, links | Google’s core ranking systems | Retrieval, entity confidence, corroboration |
| Measurable in Search Console? | Yes | Partly — impressions, not citations | No |
| Extra work beyond SEO | — | Structure and question-shaped content | Entity resolution and corroboration |
The row worth dwelling on is the last one. Moving from SEO to AEO adds structural work. Moving to GEO adds entity work. Neither replaces the foundation, and neither is a separate budget line so much as a different emphasis within one.
What this should change about what you buy
If Google’s own position is that AEO is SEO, the practical consequences for a marketing budget are fairly direct.
- Be sceptical of standalone AEO retainers that do not include technical and content fundamentals. You would be paying twice for the same foundation, or paying for a layer built on nothing.
- Ask what is actually different in the scope. Legitimate answers are entity and schema work, corroboration across third-party sources, restructuring for extractability, and monitoring what assistants say. Anything mentioning llms.txt is a flag.
- Expect reporting to be honest about its limits. Citations in ChatGPT are not measurable in Search Console. Anyone showing you a precise GEO ranking number is showing you an estimate, and should say so.
- Judge it on the leading indicators. Whether assistants describe you accurately, whether your entity resolves, and whether conventional rankings are improving — because on Google’s account, the last of those is the same project.
What we measured on our own site
Rather than theorise, we ran the analysis across our own blog — every post with meaningful search impressions, scored against position and click-through. The result was a threshold rather than a curve:
| Post length | Average position | Click-through rate |
|---|---|---|
| Under 700 words | 32.3 | 0.15% |
| 700 – 1,000 | 30.9 | 0.20% |
| 1,000 – 1,500 | 37.0 | 0.17% |
| Over 1,500 | 14.5 | 0.49% |
Word count is a proxy for topical completeness, not a ranking factor — the correlation is moderate, and padding will not work. But it is consistent with Google’s own advice: you cannot cover a commercial topic completely in 900 words, and completeness is what both rankings and citations reward.
Separately, when Google’s AI Overview cited us by name, the page it chose was a blog post rather than the matching service page — and the only one of four near-identical pages that crossed 1,500 words and carried FAQ structured data. We published the full analysis, and the client-side results in a separate AEO and GEO case study.
What to actually do
- Fix the fundamentals first. Crawlability, site health, speed. Google’s position makes this the entire foundation, not a prerequisite you can skip.
- Resolve your entity. Complete Organization markup on your own domain, and directory listings that agree with it. This is the one genuinely additional job that AEO and GEO create.
- Publish specifics. Numbers, named clients, methods, prices. A model cannot cite a claim you have not made. “Leading provider” is not extractable; “20,000 units annually” is.
- Structure for extraction. Real heading hierarchy, question-shaped sections, lists where lists suit. Not because a system demands it, but because it is clearer for readers too.
- Go deep on fewer topics. One complete page beats three partial ones, for rankings and citations alike.
- Check what assistants already say about you. Most brands have never looked. The common problem is not absence — it is being described wrongly.
A view from our founder
Kavish Arora, who has run this agency for thirteen years, puts the same conclusion less technically:
“SEO is not going to die, ever. It started on a basic principle and it is still that principle: list everything down properly, with common sense. Your services. Your reviews. Your FAQs. Your testimonials. Your videos. Everything that proves to a customer that you can actually deliver the product or the service.
If you can do that honestly, I am confident it will get you results — in Google, in ChatGPT, in whatever comes next. Invest in building content. AI helps you produce it faster, yes. But the logic behind it still has to come from you.”
That is worth holding onto as the terminology keeps changing. Every genuine improvement described on this page — clearer structure, published specifics, real proof, complete answers — is something a thoughtful marketer would have done before AI Overviews existed. The systems changed. What they reward did not.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between SEO, AEO and GEO?
SEO is being findable in a list of search results. AEO is being the answer inside AI Overviews, featured snippets and voice results. GEO is being cited by generative assistants like ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity. They are layered on the same foundations rather than being alternatives to one another.
Has Google said AEO and GEO are just SEO?
Effectively, yes. Google’s AI optimisation guidance states that “from Google Search’s perspective, optimizing for generative AI search is optimizing for the search experience, and thus still SEO”, because its generative features are built on the same core ranking and quality systems.
If it is all SEO, why does AEO exist as a term?
Because Google is not the only answer engine. Google’s statement is scoped to Google Search. Assistants that retrieve and cite independently place more weight on entity resolution and corroboration across sources than a conventional ranking system does. That difference is real, if narrower than the marketing suggests.
Do I need an llms.txt file?
No. Google states explicitly that Search does not use them. It is one of several tactics Google’s guidance names and dismisses, alongside artificial content chunking and rewriting pages for machines.
Should I rewrite my content for AI systems?
No. Google advises writing for people and warns specifically against rewriting content for AI. The changes that help — clearer structure, more specific claims, greater completeness — help human readers first, which is why they work.
How do I know if AI assistants cite my brand?
Ask them. Put your brand name and your main category questions to ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity and Google’s AI Mode, and note not only whether you appear but whether the description is accurate. Being described incorrectly is more common than being absent, and more damaging.
Does AEO replace SEO?
No, and Google’s guidance makes that difficult to argue. Every AEO gain we have measured came from work that also improved conventional rankings. A site that cannot rank in Google is unlikely to be quoted by systems built on Google’s index.
What should a brand do first?
Audit the entity before anything else — whether your own site defines who you are in machine-readable form, and whether your listings agree with it. That single piece of work underpins both conventional rankings and citations, and most brands have never checked it.
