Definitions
SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is the practice of improving a website's position in organic search results by making it easier for search engines like Google and Bing to crawl, understand, and rank its content. SEO works toward a ranked list of results the user selects from.
AEO (Answer Engine Optimisation) is the practice of structuring web content so AI-powered answer engines - ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini - can extract and cite it directly in synthesised answers. AEO works toward being the cited source in an AI-generated response.
GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation) is sometimes used interchangeably with AEO, but is typically the broader term - it includes brand authority, citation networks, and training data presence alongside the on-page signals AEO focuses on.
Signal-by-signal comparison
The table below shows how each signal is weighted in traditional search versus AI answer engines. Signals in green are directly shared. Signals in orange require AEO-specific additions on top of the SEO baseline.
| Signal | SEO (Google/Bing) | AEO (ChatGPT/Perplexity) |
|---|---|---|
| Primary output | Ranked list of blue links | Synthesised answer with cited sources |
| User interaction | User selects a result to visit | User reads the answer; may or may not click a source |
| Key ranking inputs | Backlinks, content quality, technical health, keyword relevance | Structured data, definitional clarity, E-E-A-T, bot access |
| Structured data role | Helpful for rich snippets (star ratings, breadcrumbs) | FAQPage and HowTo schema are citation units - high priority |
| Backlinks | Primary authority signal | Brand-level authority matters; link volume less so |
| Author attribution | Minor E-E-A-T signal | High - AI engines weight who wrote the content |
| Keyword optimisation | Central - match search intent and use target terms | Secondary - clear definitions matter more than keyword frequency |
| Content length | Comprehensive coverage rewarded (1,000-3,000 words for competitive topics) | Directness rewarded - a 200-word page with a clear answer beats a 2,000-word one without |
| Page speed | Core Web Vitals are a ranking signal | Slower pages get crawled less often but speed is not a direct citation signal |
| Crawl access | Googlebot must not be blocked | 8+ named AI bots need explicit Allow in robots.txt |
Check SEO and AEO signals together
Run the SEO Optimiser for traditional signals and the AI Search Checker for AEO-specific signals. Both are free, no login required, results in under 60 seconds.
Which should you focus on?
The answer depends on where your audience starts their queries. If your audience uses Google as the entry point for discovery, SEO is the larger channel and the priority. If your audience uses ChatGPT or Perplexity to research options before visiting any site - increasingly true for software, professional services, and B2B - AEO is worth treating as a separate workstream.
In practice, most sites should treat AEO as an extension of their existing SEO work rather than a replacement. The incremental effort is modest: fixing robots.txt for AI bots, adding FAQPage schema to key pages, and adding author attribution covers most of the delta between a well-optimised SEO page and a well-optimised AEO page.
Start with SEO if:
- -Your site has no structured data yet
- -Your pages are not indexed by Google
- -Your robots.txt has unresolved issues
- -Your Core Web Vitals are in the red
Add AEO immediately if:
- -Your audience uses ChatGPT or Perplexity for research
- -Competitors are already being cited in AI answers
- -Your content answers specific factual questions (definitions, how-tos, comparisons)
- -You have existing blog content that could be retrofitted with FAQPage schema
AEO implementation: the minimum effective dose
You do not need to rebuild your site for AEO. The following four changes cover the highest-impact signals for most sites:
Check and fix AI crawler access
Open /robots.txt and verify GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, PerplexityBot, ClaudeBot, and anthropic-ai are not blocked. A wildcard Disallow: / or an explicit block on any of these prevents the engine from crawling you regardless of content quality.
Add FAQPage schema to your 3-5 most important pages
The JSON-LD FAQPage type packages question-answer pairs in a format AI engines read directly. Each page needs 3-7 Q&A pairs with complete answers in the acceptedAnswer field. This is the single change with the highest return on time for most sites.
Add author attribution and About/Contact pages
AI engines check whether content has a named author, whether there is an About page explaining who runs the site, and whether there is a Contact page. These are E-E-A-T signals. Missing them does not disqualify you, but having them improves citability.
Run an AI search readiness audit to find remaining gaps
The free AI Search Checker runs 32 AEO-specific checks and returns a score with a prioritised fix list. It checks all 8 named AI bots, all schema types, E-E-A-T signals, content structure, llms.txt, and technical signals in one scan.
Frequently asked questions
What is AEO (Answer Engine Optimisation)?
AEO (Answer Engine Optimisation) is the practice of structuring web content so AI-powered answer engines - including ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini - can extract, understand, and cite it directly in response to user queries. AEO focuses on machine-readable structure (FAQPage and HowTo schema), definitional sentences, author attribution, and AI crawler access in robots.txt.
What is GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation)?
GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation) is a broader discipline that encompasses AEO and extends it to include brand authority, citation networks, content freshness, and presence across the sources that large language models train on. Where AEO focuses on on-page signals for retrieval, GEO also considers off-page reputation and how a brand is described across the web.
Can you do SEO and AEO at the same time?
Yes, and the overlap is substantial. Good technical SEO (HTTPS, canonical URLs, clean HTML structure, fast loading) benefits both. The additional AEO work is focused on three areas not traditionally part of SEO: explicit AI bot access in robots.txt, FAQPage and HowTo structured data, and E-E-A-T signals like author attribution and definitional sentences.
Does AEO replace SEO?
No. Traditional search (Google, Bing) still drives the majority of web traffic. AEO is additive - it captures the portion of queries that resolve in AI-generated answers rather than click-through results. The two disciplines overlap significantly, and the incremental work to do both from a solid SEO foundation is modest.
What tools check AEO signals?
Most SEO tools (Ahrefs, Semrush, Screaming Frog) do not check AI-specific signals like AI bot access, llms.txt, or ai.txt. The GetInlytics AI Search Visibility Checker runs 32 AEO-specific checks across AI Crawler Access, Structured Data, E-E-A-T Signals, Content Structure, and Technical Signals - free, no login required.
Is structured data required for AEO?
Not strictly required, but FAQPage JSON-LD is the highest-leverage single addition for most sites. AI engines that use retrieval (Perplexity, ChatGPT with browsing) parse JSON-LD to extract Q&A pairs directly - these are the exact format the engine is trying to produce. A page without schema is still citable, but a page with FAQPage schema containing well-written answers is cited more precisely and more often.