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What's the difference between SEO, AEO and GEO?

By Adam Collins, Founder, 3Fold Labs

SEO. AEO. GEO. Different placements, with a shared foundation. Editorial graphic explaining the article topic.

Short answer

SEO is getting your pages found and clicked in search results. AEO (answer engine optimization) is getting your content used as the direct answer. GEO (generative engine optimization) is getting named or cited inside AI answers from tools like ChatGPT, Claude and Grok. They overlap heavily, and all three rest on the same foundation: pages machines can read and trust.

SEO, AEO, GEO: one job, three windows. All three rest on the same foundation: pages machines can read and trust.
Whatever the name, the work is the same: crawlable pages with clear, checkable facts.
All three rest on the same foundation: pages machines can read and trust.

What does each one mean, in one sentence?

  • SEO. Google's own definition: SEO "is about helping search engines understand your content, and helping users find your site and make a decision about whether they should visit your site through a search engine."
  • AEO. Shaping your content so a search engine or assistant lifts it as the answer itself, like a featured snippet, a People Also Ask box, or a voice reply. This is how the industry uses the term; there's no official definition.
  • GEO. The term comes from a 2023 research paper by Aggarwal and colleagues at Princeton and IIT Delhi, later published at KDD 2024. It describes improving how visible your content is inside answers written by "generative engines," meaning AI systems that search and then summarize.
Three cards: SEO gets pages found and clicked for a visit; AEO gets your content used as the answer; GEO gets you named or cited in AI answers.
SEO counts a visit, AEO counts your wording used as the answer, and GEO counts your business named or cited by ChatGPT, Claude or Grok.
They overlap heavily.

How do they compare side by side?

Swipe sideways to see every column.

SEOAEOGEO
Where you show upClassic blue-link results and the map packFeatured snippets, People Also Ask, voice answers, AI OverviewsAI-written answers in ChatGPT, Claude and Grok, plus Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode
What "winning" looks likeA visit to your siteYour wording used as the answerYour business named or cited in the answer
Who defined itLong-standing practice, documented by GoogleIndustry term, no standard definitionAcademic paper (Aggarwal et al., KDD 2024)
Main things you controlCrawlable pages, useful content, titles, links, Business ProfileClear question-and-answer structure, short direct answersCrawler access for each AI tool, clear facts, sources and evidence on the page
How you measure itSearch Console, analyticsSearch Console Performance reportRepeated prompt tests, referral tracking, Bing Webmaster Tools AI Performance report (Copilot)
What Google saysThe baselineGoogle decides what becomes a snippet; you can't mark a page as one"No additional requirements" for Google's AI features beyond normal SEO

Checked 10/20/2026. Details change; check the source.

Is AEO the same thing as GEO?

Close enough that people argue about it. HubSpot calls the difference "mostly terminological" and says "there's no industry standard on this." eMarketer says "no common taxonomy exists" and lists GEO, AEO, GSO, LLMO, and AIO as terms in use.

The practical split I use: AEO is about the shape of your answer, GEO is about whether an AI tool can find you and is willing to repeat you. You end up doing the same work either way.

Does Google say you need anything special for AI Overviews?

No. Google's documentation says "the best practices for SEO remain relevant for AI features" and "there are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, nor other special optimizations necessary." It also says you don't need "new machine readable files, AI text files, or markup," and "there's also no special schema.org structured data that you need to add."

What Google does list: allow crawling in robots.txt and at your host or CDN, link your pages together, keep important content in text, make structured data match the visible page, and keep your Business Profile up to date (more on showing up in Google Maps for your trade). For a service business, that last one is easy to miss.

Myths and facts: Google says AI Overviews and AI Mode need no additional requirements, and that SEO best practices remain relevant.
Google says normal SEO is what counts for AI Overviews and AI Mode, with no special files, markup or optimizations needed.
Google's documentation says the best practices for SEO remain relevant for AI features.

Getting found on Google and in AI answers

What did the original GEO research actually find?

The paper built a test AI engine that answered from the top five Google results using gpt-3.5-turbo, and ran a smaller 200-sample check on Perplexity. Its headline: GEO methods "can boost visibility by up to 40% in generative engine responses."

Up to 40%: the GEO paper says its methods can boost visibility in AI answers by up to 40%. Visibility is its own measure, not traffic or calls.
The paper tested its own AI engine built on the top Google results, and its "visibility" measure isn't traffic, calls or revenue.
GEO methods "can boost visibility by up to 40% in generative engine responses."

Read that number carefully. "Visibility" is the paper's own measure of how much of an AI answer leans on a source. It is not traffic, calls, or revenue. The methods that helped most were citing sources, adding quotations, and adding statistics. Keyword stuffing gave "little to no improvement," and did worse than doing nothing in that smaller test. The authors also note their methods "may need to adapt over time" as these engines change.

The useful takeaway for a business owner: say specific, checkable things and back them up (more on what an AI visibility audit checks).

How do ChatGPT, Claude and Grok find you in the first place?

ChatGPT and Claude each have their own search crawlers, and you can block them without meaning to:

If one of these is blocked in robots.txt or by your firewall, no amount of AEO or GEO writing will matter for that tool.

What should a local service business actually do?

Treat it as one job seen through three windows. Get the basics right once and they count everywhere:

  • Make sure Googlebot, OAI-SearchBot, Claude-SearchBot and Claude-User can reach your site.
  • One page per service, with the towns you serve written in plain text.
  • Start each page with a short, direct answer to the question a customer would ask.
  • Put checkable facts on the page: license number, insurance, warranty, service area.
  • Keep your Google Business Profile complete and matching your site.
  • Check Search Console. Google says AI Overview and AI Mode appearances are counted in the regular Performance report under the "Web" search type.
Checklist: let the crawlers reach your site, one page per service, a short answer first, checkable facts, a complete Business Profile, Search Console.
Crawler access, one page per service, a direct answer up top, checkable facts, a complete Business Profile, and Search Console.
What a local service business should actually do.

How 3Fold Labs helps

I treat SEO, AEO and GEO as one piece of work, because they rest on the same pages and listings. I review your service pages, business details and the technical setup crawlers need, then fix what's thin or inconsistent. Rankings and AI mentions aren't guaranteed, by me or anyone.

Here's my Getting found on Google and in AI answers.

FAQ

Is SEO dead because of AI?

Google doesn't think so. Its own AI features page says SEO best practices "remain relevant." ChatGPT and Claude still need pages their crawlers can reach.

Should I hire separate people for SEO, AEO and GEO?

For a small service business, probably not. The work overlaps almost entirely. What changes is which tools you check, not what you build.

Do I need an llms.txt file or special AI schema?

Google says no for its AI features. OpenAI's and Anthropic's crawler pages don't mention llms.txt, and xAI documents no crawler. Neither replaces clear pages and crawler access.

Can anyone guarantee I'll show up in AI answers?

No. OpenAI says placement in ChatGPT search "is not guaranteed," and Google says indexing and serving aren't guaranteed either.

Sources

Analytics and session replay stay off until you accept. Form answers are not recorded by these tools. Privacy policy