AEO vs SEO vs GEO: what they mean and which your business needs
Three acronyms, one goal: getting found. Here is what AEO, SEO and GEO actually mean, how they overlap, and where an Australian business should spend its effort.
Ned Mehić
Three acronyms get thrown around whenever people talk about getting found online: SEO, AEO and GEO. They sound like competing strategies. They are really three views of the same goal, which is being the business a customer picks. Here is what each one means and where to spend your effort.
The one-line version of each
- SEO (Search Engine Optimisation): getting your pages to rank on Google's results page.
- AEO (Answer Engine Optimisation): getting your business named inside an AI assistant's answer (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity).
- GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation): the broader craft of being visible and well represented across all generative AI surfaces, including AI Overviews in Google.
AEO and GEO are close cousins. Most people use them interchangeably. The useful distinction is SEO (the blue links) versus the AI answer (everything else).
How they compare
| SEO | AEO / GEO | |
|---|---|---|
| The surface | Google results page | AI-generated answer |
| What you win | A ranking position | A mention by name |
| What the customer sees | Ten or more options to choose from | Three or four names, already shortlisted |
| The typical query | "electrician adelaide" | "who's a good electrician in adelaide that turns up" |
| The biggest lever | Links, on-page relevance, site health | Being cited, reviewed and described consistently across the web |
| How you measure it | Rankings and clicks | How often AI names you, and who it names instead |
Why the difference matters
On Google, you are one of many options and the customer does the choosing. In an AI answer, the assistant has already done the shortlisting. If you are not one of the few names it returns, the customer never learns you exist. There is no page two to scroll to.
That changes where effort pays off. SEO rewards a wide net of ranking pages. AEO rewards being the clearly described, well cited, consistently referenced business that a model is comfortable putting its name behind. For the mechanics of how that shortlist gets built, see How AI assistants choose which businesses to recommend.
The good news: the work overlaps
You do not have to pick. Most of what helps one helps the others:
- Clear, specific pages that answer real questions rank in Google and get cited by AI.
- Genuine reviews and credible mentions lift both.
- Consistent business details (name, phone, service area) matter everywhere.
The honest difference is measurement. SEO has mature tools for rankings. AEO is newer, and most businesses have no idea what AI says about them. That is the gap worth closing first, because it tells you where to aim. If the term itself is new to you, start with What is Answer Engine Optimisation? or browse the plain-English glossary.
Where an Australian business should spend its effort
For most small and medium Australian businesses in 2026, the order is simple:
- Keep doing the SEO basics that already work (clear pages, reviews, a healthy site).
- Add the AEO layer on top, because that is where attention is moving and where almost nobody is measuring yet.
- Treat GEO as the umbrella: the same habits, applied across every AI surface your customers use.
The cheapest way to know whether any of this is working is to look. Run a free AI check to see how often AI recommends you today, then check again as you improve. The acronyms matter far less than the answer to one question: when a customer asks AI who to hire, does it say your name?
ChatGPT
Claude
Gemini
Perplexity