AEO and GEO are both newly emerging SEO trends.
AEO stands for answer engine optimization. It is a web content optimization strategy aimed at making web content more accessible for AI voice assistants and AI summaries, like Google’s SERP AI Overviews.
Whereas GEO is a content optimization strategy aimed at making web content more accessible for AI engines, like ChatGPT.
Both strategies are used to enhance online content for more visibility, much like SEO. But there are some subtle differences between the two, especially since these are relatively new and under-studied. So, what are these subtle differences?
Let’s take a look at them in this article.
Both AEO and GEO focus on enhancing content to make it more accessible AI systems. The two strategies have the following five key distinctions:
AEO
The purpose of AEO is to get featured in AI-curated answer boxes, overviews, and voice search results.
These include Google Assistant searches, Google’s AI overviews, Bing Chat, etc. You see Google AI overviews when you search for a query on Google, titled as “AI Overview” with Gemini’s logo.
GEO
The purpose of GEO is mainly to get content featured in AI tools’ answers, such as ChatGPT’s search answers.
Getting your content featured in AI chatbots’ answers can increase your brand’s visibility as well as create a positive image of it as a reliable and authoritative source.
AEO
The main target of AEO are platforms with AI-powered search features, like AI overviews (Google, MS Bing, Perplexity etc.) and voice search results (Google Assistant, Alexa, Siri etc.).
These features are widely used to get overviews of topics instead of click-through and read all the details on a website.
GEO
GEO targets generative AI tools, specifically the ones with search and similar capabilities, including ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Google’s Gemini, etc.
These are used by people who want to consume content in a conversation style and might want to ask the chatbots related but very specific questions, which might not be answered very well on the web.
AEO
AEO content needs to be clear, well-structured, and factually accurate. This is because AI overviews and similar features prioritize factual accuracy and content that’s well-structured for maximum comprehensibility.
GEO
It is speculated that AI tools prefer content that is informative but also feels natural and human to read because of their conversational style. So, GEO content prioritized being not just accurate and well-structured but also conversational.
AEO
AEO content aims to be comprehensive, because AI overviews focus on giving, well, “overviews,” which cover all key aspects of a topic from definition to key points and related questions. That’s why the structure of AEO content needs to be comprehensive, with FAQs, tables, and bullet points where possible, and concise answers and schema for further accessibility.
GEO
GEO strategy requires similar content structure: comprehensive with full context, and user-friendly examples and analogies, written in a human-like flow.
AEO
Since AI overviews and voice assistants focus on satisfying user intent with concise and helpful answers, AEO aims to provide direct and instant answers to user queries, and leverages schema markup (schema.org) to make content easier to understand for search engines, and avoid adding unnecessary and irrelevant content.
GEO
GEO prioritizes content in a conversational and natural language that's easier for users to connect to. It also focuses on adding depth to the content, compared to AEO, and citing sources for credibility.
Additionally, both AI overviews and AI search engines prioritize sites deemed as reliable and reputable in their fields, with content that’s factually accurate and helpful to readers. So, factual accuracy and expertise become very important.
It should also be noted that different AI platforms, both search engine features and chatbots, leverage different algorithms and criteria for assessing a page’s reliability. So, there’s a lot of guess work and overlapping in what we know, for now. Also, one of the best ways to gain exposure in both cases is by producing high-quality and reliable content, so that both AI overviews, assistants, and chatbots have more opportunities to mention your name.
AEO
The main audience of AEO are AI systems focused on extracting quick but not in-depth answers for audiences seeking comprehensive or direct answers.
GEO:
The main target audience of GEO are chatbots, large language models (LLM), synthesizing information to generate conversational answers for users.
AEO
AEO offers to increase your site’s visibility in AI snippets and voice search results, putting it as a reputable and reliable source. This can give your website and content exposure to newer users, which can potentially translate to traffic.
GEO
GEO offers you an even more indirect exposure to audiences. With increased visibility in AI searches, your content can shape AI tool’s responses and appear reliable and authentic. This can especially help if AI tools suggest or recommend your tool/software/services to users seeking relevant solutions.
For example, SEMrush and Ahrefs are authoritative sources (and tools) for learning (and performing) SEO, with a lot of helpful and high-quality content published, which has gained them quite a lot of exposure in SEO. So, naturally, AI tools are likely to mention SEMrush and Ahrefs as SEO solutions if the user happens to ask.
These are some of the differences between two new emerging SEO strategies: AEO and GEO.
Both AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) and GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) are content-enhancing strategies to increase website visibility. These tools have several differences, including in their purposes, target platforms, structure needs, best practices, audiences, and visibility impacts. AEO focuses on making content more accessible and understandable for AI systems like Google’s AI overviews, while GEO focuses on making content easier to access and comprehend by LLM, models like ChatGPT. Where AEO focuses on providing more direct and concise answers to satisfy user intent, GEO inclines toward providing rather in-depth yet comprehensive answers in human-written style.
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