AEO (answer engine optimization)

DefinitionAEO is the work of making your pages the source that answer engines (AI assistants and Google's AI answers) quote when they answer a question directly.

Answer engines respond with one written answer instead of a list of links. AEO focuses on being the quoted source: a clear, direct answer near the top of each section, specific facts, sources for your claims and pages that search engines can crawl and index.

AEO overlaps heavily with SEO, because engines that cite sources search the web before they answer. Google says the best practices for SEO remain relevant for its AI features in Search. See SEO, AEO and GEO.

Learn it step by step

• SEO, AEO and GEO: what each one means (AEO and GEO fundamentals)
• Writing pages AI engines cite (AEO and GEO fundamentals)

Related terms

• GEO (generative engine optimization): GEO is the work of getting your brand mentioned, recommended and cited in answers written by generative AI such as ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity.
• SEO (search engine optimization): SEO is the work of helping search engines crawl, understand and rank your pages so that people searching for what you offer find and click them.
• Citation: A citation is a link or source reference an AI engine attaches to its answer, showing which page it took information from.
• AI Overview: An AI Overview is the AI-generated summary Google shows at the top of some search results, with links to the pages it drew on.