SEO, AEO and GEO are overlapping labels for one job: making your business easy to find and trust. SEO targets ranked results, AEO targets quoted answers, and GEO or "AI SEO" is the same idea aimed at generative AI tools. The work you do first is the same for all three.
The three terms in one table
| SEO | AEO | GEO / AI SEO | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Goal | Rank in the list of results | Be the answer in a box or voice reply | Be named in an AI assistant's reply |
| Where you show up | Google and Bing result pages | Featured answers, maps, voice, AI Overviews | ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and similar |
| What helps most | Relevant pages, links, speed, reviews | Clear facts, complete profiles, consistent listings | The same, plus fresh pages and real reviews |
| Can it be guaranteed? | No | No | No |
What really differs
Very little in the actual work. Google states that its AI features need no special optimisation beyond normal search practices. The practical difference is where you check results: a ranking tool for SEO, and a handful of real questions typed into AI tools for AEO and GEO.
Do these in this order
- Make your facts consistent across the website, Google Business Profile and listings. Cheap, fast and the base for everything else.
- Complete your Google Business Profile. Google says local results depend on relevance, distance and prominence, and prominence includes reviews and links from other sites.
- Ask for reviews and reply to them. In one 2026 vendor study of 10,000 local businesses, those found by both ChatGPT and Perplexity averaged 133 Google reviews, against 11 for AI-invisible ones. Treat that as a signal, not a law: the sampling method was not published.
- Publish useful pages that answer real customer questions in plain text, and keep them updated.
- Fix speed and crawlability so the pages can actually be read.
- Add structured data last, to keep machine-readable facts matching the page.
A warning about vendors
Because "GEO" is new, many sellers promise guaranteed AI rankings or special files that unlock them. Nobody outside these companies can promise that. Ask any vendor what they will change, how they will measure it and what they will not promise.
Frequently asked questions
Is GEO the same as AEO?
In practice yes. Both mean making content easy for AI systems to find and quote. People use the labels differently, but the work overlaps almost completely.
Should I stop doing SEO?
No. AI answers draw on the same web content, so a fast, accurate, well-linked site helps all three.
Sources
- Google Search Central: AI features and your website
- Google Business Profile Help: Tips to improve your local ranking
- Insites: What AI uses to choose local businesses and what it ignores (vendor study, May 2026)
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