CiteOps Answers

AEO vs SEO vs GEO — what is the difference?

SEO ranks pages on Google. AEO makes a brand citable by AI answer engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and Gemini. GEO improves a brand's share of voice inside generative responses across all of those surfaces.

Step by step

1. Step 1

   SEO

   Optimizes blue-link rankings on Google, Bing. Levers: backlinks, content depth, technical health, intent match.

2. Step 2

   AEO

   Optimizes whether AI answer engines understand and cite the brand by name. Levers: schema, llms.txt, crawler access, third-party mentions.

3. Step 3

   GEO

   Optimizes share-of-voice inside generative responses. Levers: brand entity strength, sentiment, factual canon.

4. Step 4

   Overlap

   All three benefit from clean structured data and authoritative third-party mentions.

Quick facts

SEO target

Google blue links

AEO target

ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini citations

GEO target

Share of voice inside generative answers