These labels describe overlapping work to help customers discover and understand your business. Start with the pages and questions that matter to a buyer, then choose the improvements and measurements that answer your business needs.
What the names mean
AEO and GEO are industry terms with overlapping usage, rather than three separate technical standards. A useful proposal names the pages, tasks and tools involved. The acronym alone does not tell you what will change or how success will be measured.
| Term | Usual focus |
|---|---|
| SEO: search engine optimization | Helping search engines understand your pages and people find relevant information. |
| AEO: answer engine optimization | Making information useful to systems that answer a question directly. |
| GEO: generative engine optimization | Improving how your information is discovered and represented in generated answers. |
Google's AI features use the same foundations
Google says its SEO best practices remain relevant to AI Overviews and AI Mode, with no additional requirements or special optimization necessary. Supporting pages must be indexed and eligible for a search snippet. Google also says you do not need special AI text files or schema markup. This guidance covers Google's features; other providers have their own access rules. Meeting the requirements does not guarantee inclusion or a citation.
Prioritise changes that help a buyer
- Make important pages accessible. Check crawl restrictions, page responses and whether the main information is readable text.
- Explain the actual service, customers, scope and contact route. Keep business facts and changing details current.
- Answer useful buying questions with specific comparisons, examples and sources. Publish only claims you can substantiate.
- Connect related articles to the relevant service pages with descriptive links. Avoid making readers hunt for the next step.
- Check the enquiry path on a phone. A useful answer needs a working way for the buyer to contact you.
Keep three measurements separate
Bing's AI Performance reports citations across supported AI experiences. A manual question check is a dated sample of one tool's response. Repeat comparable checks and keep the question, tool and date; do not present that sample as a market-wide ranking.
| Signal | What to record | What it does not prove |
|---|---|---|
| Search traffic | Search Console clicks, queries and landing pages, using the report's definitions. | Every visitor's intent or whether a particular AI answer caused an enquiry. |
| AI visibility | Dated mentions, cited URLs and available provider citation reports for agreed questions. | A website visit, endorsement or sale. |
| Received enquiries | Actual form submissions, messages or booked calls, with source evidence where available. | That every enquiry came from the last recorded citation. |
Ask for a concrete engagement
Agree one priority market, the pages to improve, evidence for the changes and how results will be reviewed. Ask which access problems will be fixed and which buyer questions the content will answer. Clarify whether content writing and publication are included, and who checks business facts before release. Keep a dated change log so the next review can distinguish delivered work from changes in search traffic or AI answers. Neither an SEO package nor an AI visibility service can promise a platform's recommendations.
Choose a starting scope
Use a technical review when pages cannot be found or read. Use focused monthly work when the site needs a manageable sequence of page improvements. Add agreed AI-answer checks when you need to understand how buyers may encounter your business there. Fullsend scopes the work and reports search traffic, available AI appearance evidence and received enquiries separately.
Related decisions
Official references: Google's SEO starter guide · Google's AI features and website requirements · You.com's explanation of answer engine optimization · Original GEO research and terminology · Search Console performance definitions · Bing AI Performance citation measurement