What is Answer Engine Optimisation (AEO)?
- Answer Engine Optimisation (AEO)
- Answer engine optimisation (AEO) is the practice of optimising a website so that AI-powered answer engines feature it as the response to a user's question. It targets the surfaces that answer directly, including ChatGPT, Google's AI Overviews, Perplexity and Claude, and treats being cited as the outcome rather than being ranked.
01 In practice
AEO and GEO are used almost interchangeably in practice, and the difference between them is mostly which part of the mechanism the speaker is emphasising. AEO points at the surface, the answer engine; GEO points at the model doing the generating. Nobody buying either is choosing between them.
What matters more than the label is that both describe a shift in what a page is competing for. The measurable target moves from position to presence: whether the brand is named at all, how often, and which sources the engine drew on when it decided.
02 Related terms
The terms next to this one.
The work behind it
Rank on Google. Get cited by ChatGPT.
The sources assistants quote and the pages search still ranks, one engagement, both surfaces.