Every few months the marketing world finds a new three-letter acronym and declares the old one dead. It's rarely that dramatic. SEO, AEO and GEO are three different outcomes that mostly rely on the same underlying work — so it's worth knowing what each one actually means before anyone tries to sell you a separate service for all three.
The one-line version
If you remember nothing else: SEO is about ranking in Google's list of links. AEO is about being the direct answer to a question. GEO is about being named and recommended by AI assistants. Same web, same business, three different ways of being found.
SEO: ranking in the links
Search engine optimisation is the familiar one — being high in Google's blue links when someone searches. It's built on relevance, quality, links and technical health, and despite every obituary written for it, people still search and it still matters. It is the foundation the other two build on.
AEO: being the answer
Answer engine optimisation is about being the direct answer rather than one of ten links — the featured snippet at the top, the response a voice assistant reads out, the boxed answer to a specific question. It rewards content that answers real questions plainly and is structured clearly enough for a machine to lift the answer out. If you've ever searched "what time does X close" and got the time without clicking anything, that's the territory AEO plays in.
GEO: being recommended by AI
Generative engine optimisation is the newest, and the one driving most of the current noise. It's about whether AI assistants — ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Google's AI Overviews — name and recommend your business when someone asks them for one. The difference from the other two is where these tools look: they write a synthesised answer by pulling from the live web, and for "who should I hire" questions they lean heavily on third-party sources — reviews, directories, registers, local press — more than on your own site. So GEO leans on reputation and corroboration, not just your own pages. We cover the mechanics in what GEO actually is.
How much they actually overlap
A lot — and this is the part the acronym-sellers tend to skip. A business that is clearly described, well-structured, consistent across the web, genuinely well-reviewed and easy for machines to read tends to do well in all three at once. A clean, quotable service page helps you rank (SEO), helps you be lifted as an answer (AEO), and helps an assistant understand and recommend you (GEO). You are not running three separate projects. You are doing the fundamentals well, then leaning toward whichever channel matters most for how your customers actually behave.
The honest headline: you don't need three services. You need to be genuinely findable and trustworthy, then weight your effort toward where your customers are actually searching.
Which one should you care about?
It depends on your customers. If they increasingly open ChatGPT or Perplexity and ask for a recommendation, GEO deserves real attention — because being absent there is invisible in a way a low Google ranking never was. If they still mostly search Google, SEO remains your bread and butter, with AEO capturing the quick-answer queries. For most small businesses the sensible order is: get the shared fundamentals right, find out where you actually stand across each, then spend your effort where the gap and the demand meet. And be wary of anyone selling a guaranteed result in any of the three — none of them work that way.
Common questions
What's the difference between SEO, AEO and GEO?
SEO is about ranking in Google's list of links. AEO is about being the direct answer to a question, such as a featured snippet or a voice answer. GEO is about being named and recommended by AI assistants like ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google's AI Overviews when someone asks for a business like yours.
Is AEO the same as GEO?
They're closely related and often used loosely, but not identical. AEO is about being the concise answer to a specific question. GEO is about being recommended inside the longer, synthesised answers generative AI assistants write, which lean heavily on third-party sources. In practice the work overlaps a great deal.
Do I need to do SEO, AEO and GEO all separately?
No. They share the same foundations, so most of the work helps all three at once. You don't run three separate projects; you do the fundamentals well and then address whichever channel matters most for how your customers actually search.
Is SEO dead now that AI search exists?
No. People still search Google, and the AI assistants draw heavily on the same web and signals SEO is built on. SEO has changed and been joined by AEO and GEO, but the underlying job — being genuinely findable and trustworthy — is the same.
Want to know where you stand across AI search?
The AI Visibility Check is an independent, one-off report on whether AI assistants recommend your business, who they name instead, and what it would take to be the one they pick. Done entirely for you — no sales call, no retainer. €499, one-off.
See the AI Visibility Check → How to check if ChatGPT recommends you