Does AEO replace SEO?

No. AEO builds on SEO, but it cites more and more pages that don't rank in the top 10. You need both to capture traditional search and the growing share of conversational AI queries.

Are AEO and GEO the same thing?

In practice, yes. AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) and GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) describe the same techniques for getting cited by ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity or AI Overviews. The name changes by market: AEO in the US, GEO in Spain and Latin America.

Does FAQ schema still help?

Google removed FAQ rich results for all sites in May 2026, so FAQPage markup no longer changes how you look in Google. The markup is still valid and readable by AI engines, but the visible question-and-answer content on the page is what actually gets cited.

SEO and AEO

What is AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) and how to get cited by ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Overviews

By Javier Fernández. Published September 24, 2026

Answer Engine Optimization (AEO), also called Generative Engine Optimization (GEO), is the practice of getting AI answer engines like ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews to cite your brand as a source. It's built on solid SEO plus answer-first content, structured data, entity consistency and third-party brand mentions.

What is AEO?

AEO, short for Answer Engine Optimization, is the set of techniques that make your brand show up as a cited source when someone asks an AI assistant like ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude or Perplexity a question, or when Google shows an AI Overview or an AI Mode answer. Instead of optimizing only for a list of blue links, you optimize to be the source the AI uses to build its answer.

You'll also see the term GEO (Generative Engine Optimization), coined in a 2023 Princeton paper. In practice the two are synonyms. US agencies mostly say AEO; in Spain and Latin America the market says 'agencia GEO'. What matters is the idea: be the cited source.

Why ranking in Google is no longer enough

SEO is still the foundation, but the overlap between rankings and AI citations is shrinking. In a March 2026 study of 4 million URLs, Ahrefs found that only 38% of pages cited in Google AI Overviews rank in the organic top 10. BrightEdge measured citations growing from pages ranked 21 to 100. And in Semrush's 2026 AI Visibility Index, 80% of URLs cited by ChatGPT did not rank in Google's top 100 for the same prompt.

Brand mentions matter more than links. Ahrefs' correlation study of 75,000 brands found branded web mentions correlate with AI Overview visibility at 0.66, versus 0.22 for backlinks. Semrush found LinkedIn is the second most-cited domain across ChatGPT, AI Mode and Perplexity, and Reddit tops ChatGPT's sources.

How to get your company cited by ChatGPT and AI Overviews

Start with the technical layer: allow AI crawlers in robots.txt (OAI-SearchBot for ChatGPT search, Claude-SearchBot, PerplexityBot; Google's AI features use regular Googlebot), publish a small llms.txt, and add JSON-LD structured data with a stable @id for your Organization that every page's Service, Article and WebPage references.

Then rewrite key pages in citable formats: a 40-60 word direct answer under each H1, question-form H2s, comparison tables, and statistics with named sources. The Princeton GEO paper found that adding citations, quotations and statistics lifted visibility by up to 40%, while keyword stuffing hurt.

Finally, build authority off-site: a complete LinkedIn company page and founder profile, listings on Clutch, GoodFirms and DesignRush, and genuine participation in communities. Then measure: Google Search Console's generative AI performance report and Bing Webmaster Tools' AI Performance report both show impressions and citations in AI answers.