In brief
- SEO optimises for classic results pages (blue links).
- AEO optimises for direct answers — featured snippets, voice assistants, knowledge panels.
- GEO optimises specifically for generated answers from AI engines (ChatGPT Search, Perplexity, AI Overviews).
- All three share a common foundation; GEO adds requirements specific to retrieval and generation.
Precise definitions
SEO — Search Engine Optimization
The set of practices that improve a site's rank on search engine results pages (Google, Bing). SEO rests on three classic pillars: technical (crawl, indexing, performance), content (relevance, expertise) and popularity (inbound links, mentions).
AEO — Answer Engine Optimization
Optimisation for answer engines. Predates LLMs, originally tied to Google featured snippets (position 0), voice assistants (Alexa, Google Assistant, Siri) and direct-answer panels. Emphasises clear short-answer phrasing, question/answer structure and structured data (schema.org).
GEO — Generative Engine Optimization
Formalised in 2024 in the academic literature (Aggarwal et al., Princeton/IIT/Georgia Tech). It designates optimisation for engines that produce a generated answer, often with citations: ChatGPT Search, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, Bing Copilot, Gemini, Claude. The new dimension is that the engine rewrites content rather than presenting it as-is.
Side-by-side comparison
| Criterion | SEO | AEO | GEO |
|---|---|---|---|
| Main objective | Rank well | Be selected as the answer | Be cited in a generated answer |
| Output format | Link to the page | Extracted answer | Rewritten answer, with citations |
| Metric | Position, clicks | Share of featured snippets, voice impressions | Share of citations, AI Overviews impressions |
| Dominant lever | Authority + technical | Q/A structure + schema | Structure + standalone passages + entities |
| Typical engines | Google, Bing (SERP) | Featured snippets, Siri, Alexa | ChatGPT Search, Perplexity, AI Overviews, Gemini, Claude |
| Freshness dependency | Medium | Medium | High |
| Dependency on explicit sourcing | Low | Medium | High |
What they share
What works for SEO and AEO also works for GEO — at 80%. The fundamentals overlap:
- Semantic HTML, crawlability, indexing.
- Topical authority (links, co-occurrences, editorial consistency).
- Clear titles and structure.
- Reading experience (legibility, accessibility).
- Structured data (schema.org) to disambiguate entities.
What GEO adds
- Standalone passages — every section should read out of context. A good GEO paragraph can be lifted in isolation and remain clear.
- Citability — sharp, numerical, sourced statements. No fuzzy phrasing.
- Explicit freshness — visible, authentic publication and update dates.
- Disambiguated entities — the brand is named, repeated and tied to its domain of expertise consistently.
- Controlled lexical variation — use the various names of a concept (synonyms, acronyms) to help retrieval.
- AI bot management — GPTBot, PerplexityBot, ClaudeBot, Google-Extended must be able to reach the site (or not — it's a business call).
Don't oppose them — wire them together
The SEO vs GEO debate is sterile. A site that ranks well in Google is almost always better positioned to be cited by LLMs: it's already crawled, already structured, already referenced by other sources. Conversely, investing in GEO without securing SEO foundations is a shortcut that fails.
Is SEO dead?
No. The "SEO is dead" thesis resurfaces with every rupture (mobile, voice search, featured snippets) and has never held. What's true: classic SEO is evolving into an augmented SEO that includes visibility on generative surfaces. Sites that ignore it will lose ground; those that absorb it will pick up new discovery channels.
Operational conclusion
Keep one method. Call it what you like. Our choice: a unified frame, the LOOP framework, treating SEO, AEO and GEO as three readings of the same discipline — steered by the audit checklist and adapted through use cases.