The short answer
- AEO (answer engine optimization) means making your website easy for AI assistants like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude and Google's AI Overviews to read, trust and quote.
- It builds on SEO instead of replacing it: Google says its AI features use the same index and eligibility rules as normal search.
- The basics: let AI search bots in, state your key facts in plain text and structured data, keep your details the same everywhere, and answer the questions customers really ask.
- Nobody can sell you a guaranteed mention. What you can do is remove the reasons an assistant would skip you.
What does AEO mean?
AEO stands for answer engine optimization. It's the work of making sure that when someone asks an AI assistant a question your business could answer, the assistant can find you, understand you and feel confident naming you.
An answer engine replies with a written answer instead of a list of links. ChatGPT search, Perplexity, Claude, Microsoft Copilot and Google's AI Overviews all work this way. Most of them show the pages they used as links, called citations.
You'll also see the term GEO (generative engine optimization), from a 2023 research paper. In practice the two mean the same thing.
How is AEO different from SEO?
SEO aims for a good spot in a list of search results. AEO aims for a place inside the answer itself. The groundwork overlaps almost completely.
| Row | SEO | AEO |
|---|---|---|
| The goal | Rank high in a list of links | Be named or linked in a written answer |
| Where it shows | Google and Bing results pages | ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Copilot, Google AI Overviews and AI Mode |
| What gets read | Your pages, by Googlebot and Bingbot | Your pages, by each assistant's own bots, plus what other sites say about you |
| What success looks like | Clicks from search | Mentions, citations, and the calls, bookings and visits they bring |
Google says there are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode beyond being indexed and eligible to show with a snippet in normal search. So if your SEO basics are broken, your AEO is too.
Why does AEO matter for a small business?
People now ask assistants for recommendations: “a dentist open on Saturdays near me”, “a plumber who can come today”, “a quiet café to work from in Leeds”. An answer usually names a handful of businesses, not ten pages of links.
If an assistant can't read your opening hours, location or what you offer, it can't confidently recommend you, and it will recommend someone whose facts it can read. That's the gap AEO closes.
What actually helps AI assistants recommend you?
- Let the search bots in. Your robots.txt should allow OAI-SearchBot (ChatGPT), Claude-SearchBot, PerplexityBot, Googlebot and Bingbot. See robots.txt rules for AI crawlers.
- Say your facts in plain text. What you offer, where you are, when you're open, what it costs and how to book or buy, written on the page, not only inside photos or PDFs.
- Add structured data. LocalBusiness markup states the same facts in a format machines read without guessing. See schema markup for local businesses.
- Keep your details identical everywhere. Same name, address and phone on your site, your Google Business Profile and directories (NAP consistency).
- Answer real questions. Pages for each service, prices, an FAQ written in your customers' words.
- Earn mentions elsewhere. Reviews, local press, directories and industry lists. Assistants often cite those sources, not only your own site.
- Keep pages fast and indexable. A stray noindex tag or a site that only shows text after JavaScript runs can hide you from some readers.
What doesn't work?
- Hidden text or special pages written only for bots. Assistants and search engines treat this as spam.
- Fake reviews or invented awards. They break platform rules and give assistants false facts to repeat.
- Stuffing keywords. Answer engines quote clear sentences, not lists of search terms.
- Expecting one file to fix everything. An llms.txt file is a nice extra, but it won't help if the bots are blocked.
How do you measure AEO?
There's no single official dashboard yet, so use a few signals together:
- Visits from AI assistants. People who click a citation arrive with chatgpt.com, perplexity.ai and similar sites as the referrer.
- AI crawler visits. Your server logs (or a tracking snippet) show how often OAI-SearchBot, PerplexityBot and others read your pages.
- Ask the questions yourself. Put the questions your customers ask into a few assistants every month and note whether you're named. Answers vary between runs, so look at many questions, not one screenshot.
CiteMagnet tracks the first two for you and marks every fix on the chart, so you can see which change made a difference.
Where should you start?
- Run the free AI visibility checker to see which assistants your robots.txt lets in.
- Fix any blocked search bots first. It's the one change that can take you from invisible to readable overnight.
- Add or correct your structured data: name, address, phone, hours.
- Write down the five questions customers ask most, and make sure your site answers each one in plain words.
- Check your Google Business Profile and main directory listings match your website exactly.
Questions people also ask
Type to search these questions, or ask anything about getting found on Google and AI.
Is AEO the same as GEO?
Yes. Generative engine optimization (GEO) and answer engine optimization (AEO) are two names for the same work: helping AI-written answers mention and link to you.
Do I need to stop doing SEO?
No. Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode use Google's normal search index, and the other assistants read the web in similar ways. Solid SEO is the foundation AEO stands on.
Can I pay to be recommended by ChatGPT or Google's AI?
Some assistants show ads, which are labelled and separate from the answer. No one can sell you a place inside the answer itself, so be wary of anyone who promises one.
How long does AEO take to work?
Each assistant re-reads sites on its own schedule, so changes can show up in days or take several weeks. Unblocking a bot that was shut out is usually the fastest win. There's no guaranteed timeline.
Sources
- AI features and your website(opens in a new tab) · Google Search Central
- Overview of OpenAI crawlers(opens in a new tab) · OpenAI
- Perplexity crawlers(opens in a new tab) · Perplexity
- Does Anthropic crawl data from the web, and how can site owners block the crawler?(opens in a new tab) · Anthropic
- Local business (LocalBusiness) structured data(opens in a new tab) · Google Search Central
- GEO: Generative Engine Optimization (Aggarwal et al., 2023)(opens in a new tab) · arXiv
Checked on . AI products change quickly; the operators' own pages are the final word.