GEO vs AEO vs SEO: what is the difference?
SEO earns a rank in search results, AEO earns the answer box, GEO earns a place in an AI engine's written answer. How the three differ and where a founder should spend effort.
By Max Gillespie, founder of Oetzi
GEO vs AEO vs SEO is the comparison between three ways of being found: search engine optimization earns a position in a list of links, answer engine optimization earns the single direct answer a search engine shows above the links, and generative engine optimization earns a mention in the paragraph an AI engine writes when someone asks a question. The three overlap in inputs and differ in what counts as winning.
What SEO, AEO, and GEO each optimize for
SEO is the oldest. You publish pages, earn links, match the phrases people type, and measure rank and clicks. AEO arrived with featured snippets and voice assistants. The target became a single answer, so pages started leading with a plain definition and a short list, structured so a machine could lift it. GEO is the newest, named in a 2023 arXiv paper. The target is an AI engine's synthesized answer, which names a few products and cites a few sources. Google's own AI Overviews sit between AEO and GEO: a generated answer, inside a search page, with citations.
Why the difference matters for a founder
The economics differ. In SEO, rank ten still gets traffic. In AEO, one page wins the box. In GEO, three names make the shortlist and everyone else is invisible. The inputs differ too. SEO and AEO reward content on your own domain. Generative engines discount vendor self description and weight what other people wrote in threads and comparisons. So generative engine optimization pushes you out of your CMS and into the communities the engines cite. The score also changes, from rank to share of model, the fraction of answers that name you.
Where to spend effort first
Do the AEO basics on every page, because they help all three: define the term in the first sentence, answer the question in the first paragraph, and include a Questions section. Then decide by where your buyers ask. If they still search, SEO. If they ask ChatGPT or Perplexity what to use, GEO, which means finding the threads those engines cite and showing up in them. Oetzi's share of model check lists those cited threads per engine so the GEO work has a target list instead of a guess.
Questions
Is AEO the same as GEO?
No, though the terms get mixed. AEO targets the direct answer a search engine shows, such as a featured snippet or a voice assistant reply, usually lifted from one page. GEO targets the answer an AI engine composes from many sources, which names products and cites pages. A page tuned for AEO helps GEO but does not cover it.
Does SEO still matter if AI engines answer questions?
Yes. Search volume has not disappeared, and generative engines retrieve from the same web that search indexes. A page that ranks is more likely to be retrieved and cited. What changed is that ranking alone no longer guarantees the buyer sees you, because the engine may summarize without sending a click.
Can one page serve SEO, AEO, and GEO at once?
Mostly. A page that defines its term plainly, answers the question early, cites primary sources, and includes specific facts and numbers does well on all three. The gap is that GEO also depends on pages you do not own, so the same care has to go into the community threads that engines cite.
Oetzi is an AI marketer for founders who need users. It finds the threads where people ask for a product like yours on seven platforms, checks whether the AI engines recommend you, and drafts replies, posts, and short video in your voice. You approve everything. 100 credits included, 10 free to try with no card, 50 bonus credits with the first payment.
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