SEO, GEO and AEO: What Each Means and What Is Proven

SEO means helping search engines understand your content and helping people find your site. GEO and AEO are newer labels for getting your content used in AI-written answers, and Google's own guidance says no separate optimisation is needed for its AI features.

What the three terms mean

SEO is search engine optimisation. Google's starter guide describes it as "helping search engines understand your content, and helping users find your site".

GEO is generative engine optimisation. The term comes from a 2023 research paper whose first author is at IIT Delhi. It defines GEO as a way of optimising web content visibility for generative engines, meaning AI systems that write answers.

AEO is answer engine optimisation. I could not find an official definition. In practice people use it for writing content so that a direct answer can be lifted from it, for example by a snippet, a voice assistant or an AI tool. Treat it as a marketing label, not a Google term.

What is documented

Google's page on AI features is clear. It says there are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, and no other special optimisations are necessary. It also says there is no special schema.org markup to add.

To appear, a page must be indexed and eligible to show a snippet in regular Search. Google adds that meeting every requirement does not guarantee that a page will be crawled, indexed or shown.

Traffic from these AI features is counted in the normal Performance report in Search Console, under the Web search type. You can measure it without any new tool.

The SEO starter guide adds two honest points. Some changes take effect in a few hours, others take several months. And not every change produces a noticeable result.

What research suggests

The GEO paper tested nine content strategies on a benchmark of 10,000 queries. Its best methods, which included adding citations, quotations from credible sources and statistics, improved visibility by 30 to 40 per cent on one of the authors' own metrics and 15 to 30 per cent on another.

Read this carefully. It is one study on its own test setup. The authors themselves say methods may need to change as generative engines evolve. It does not show that the same edits will get a small Indian brand mentioned by any particular AI tool.

What is speculation

Be cautious about anyone selling secret AI-ranking formulas or guaranteed mentions. Google says none are needed for its features, and I found no evidence that supports a guarantee on any engine.

The same goes for paying for position. For local results, Google states that there is no way to request or pay for a better local ranking.

A sensible approach for a small business

Do the basics first. Keep pages crawlable, keep important content as text, write clear titles and publish information that is original and useful. That is what Google's helpful content guidance asks for.

Keep your Business Profile current, keep product facts accurate and write for customers, not for machines. Then check Search Console once a month to see what is actually happening.

In short, SEO is the foundation. GEO and AEO are useful ways to think about clear, well-sourced writing. They are not a separate bag of tricks with proven results.