What Are AEO & GEO? Why Your Business Needs Both
Most business owners know what SEO is — Search Engine Optimization. It is how you show up in Google search results. But Google is no longer the only place people search. ChatGPT has over 800 million weekly users. Perplexity, Claude, and Gemini are growing fast. When someone asks an AI "who does the best commercial roofing in McAllen?" the AI picks one or two businesses to recommend. If yours is not one of them, that customer goes to a competitor.
That is where AEO and GEO come in.
What is AEO (Answer Engine Optimization)?
AEO stands for Answer Engine Optimization. It focuses on whether your website can appear in Google's answer boxes — the featured snippets and "People Also Ask" sections that show up above regular search results, and in Google AI Overviews.
Google does not pull these answers randomly. It looks for pages that answer questions directly, near the top of the page, in clear language. If your page starts with three paragraphs of marketing fluff before getting to the point, Google skips you and quotes a competitor.
The signals that matter for AEO include:
- A direct answer in your first paragraph (20 to 60 words, not preamble)
- Headings phrased as questions that match what people search ("How much does it cost?" not "Pricing Information")
- Specific statistics and numbers (AI engines are 41% more likely to cite content with concrete data, according to Princeton's GEO research)
- FAQPage structured data so Google knows your questions and answers are real Q&A
- A dateModified field in your schema so Google knows your content is current
What is GEO (Generative Engine Optimization)?
GEO stands for Generative Engine Optimization. It focuses on whether AI platforms like ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Gemini can reach your site, read your content, and cite you as a source.
This is different from SEO and AEO. AI crawlers are separate bots with their own rules. Even if Google can find your site perfectly, ChatGPT might be completely blocked from reading it. And if ChatGPT cannot read you, it recommends a competitor instead.
The signals that matter for GEO include:
- Robots.txt access for 11 AI crawlers (GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, ClaudeBot, Claude-SearchBot, PerplexityBot, Google-Extended, and more)
- An /llms.txt file — the AI equivalent of a sitemap that tells AI engines what your site is about and which pages matter most
- Content that renders in plain HTML, not just JavaScript — AI crawlers do not execute JavaScript the way a browser does
- Author attribution and expertise signals that help AI assess whether your content is trustworthy enough to cite
The key difference: SEO gets you ranked in Google search results. AEO gets your content into Google's answer boxes and AI Overviews. GEO gets your business cited and recommended by ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity. You need all three.
Why most small business websites fail at AEO and GEO
Most small business websites were built before AI search existed. They were designed for humans to browse, not for machines to extract answers from. The typical problems we see when we scan a site:
- No /llms.txt file (almost nobody has one yet — this is your competitive advantage)
- AI crawlers blocked by default robots.txt rules the site owner never knew about
- No question-style headings that match how people search
- Opening paragraphs full of generic marketing language instead of direct answers
- No specific numbers or statistics anywhere on the page
- No FAQ structured data, so Google has no Q&A to lift into answer boxes
Every one of these is fixable. Most take less than an hour. The businesses that fix them first will own the AI search results in their market while competitors are still invisible.
How to check your AEO and GEO scores
SiteGrader checks all of these signals automatically. Enter your URL, and in about a minute you get scores for both AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) and GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) alongside 10 other categories — 65+ checks total across Performance, Email Security, ADA Compliance, and more.
The free preview shows your scores and top issues. The full report ($8, once, no subscription) shows every check with explanations, an AI-written analysis of your specific site, and a PDF you keep forever.
Related
SPF, DKIM, and DMARC — AI search readiness means nothing if someone is sending phishing emails from your domain. Check your email security too.
What is /llms.txt? — The AI equivalent of a sitemap. Most businesses do not have one yet.
ADA website lawsuits — Law firms file hundreds every month targeting small businesses with accessibility problems like these.
Find out if AI can find your business.
Scan your site free →