SEO (search engine optimisation) is the work of getting your website found and clicked in search results, mainly Google’s. AEO (answer engine optimisation) is the work of getting your business cited inside AI-generated answers, in Google’s AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude and Microsoft Copilot. The SEO vs AEO difference in one line: SEO wins you a position on a results page, AEO wins you a mention in the answer itself. And the part that surprises most business owners: they’re built on the same foundation, so if your SEO has been done properly over the years, most of your AEO work is already done.
That’s the short version. The rest of this post is the honest detail, sourced from what Google and the AI platforms actually publish rather than what the louder corners of our industry are selling.
What Is SEO?
You likely know this one, so we’ll be quick. SEO is everything that makes your website the best available answer in a search engine: a site that’s technically sound and fast, pages that genuinely answer what people search for, and other reputable sites and reviews vouching for you. It’s compounding work. Done properly, it keeps paying long after the invoice.
What Is AEO?
AEO stands for answer engine optimisation, and the meaning is exactly what it sounds like: optimising so that answer engines, the AI tools that reply to a question directly instead of showing ten blue links, use your content when they build their answer, and name your business when someone asks for a recommendation.
The answer engines that matter right now: Google’s AI Overviews and AI Mode, ChatGPT with search, Perplexity, Claude, and Microsoft Copilot. Voice assistants draw on the same wells.
When your content gets cited, you’re not ranking on the page. You ARE the answer, with your business named as the source. For a Sunshine Coast plumber or physio, that’s the difference between being option four on a list and being the one the AI mentions by name.
And What About GEO?
You’ll also see GEO, generative engine optimisation. It’s the same practice with a different label: AEO came out of the voice-search and answer-box world, GEO out of the academic side studying how language models pick their sources. The industry is settling on AEO, which is the term we use. If someone tries to sell you SEO, AEO and GEO as three separate line items, keep one hand on your wallet.
How Google’s AI Overviews Actually Choose What To Cite?
This is the bit almost nobody explains plainly, and it’s the most useful thing on this page. Google has confirmed, in its own documentation, that AI Overviews and AI Mode run on the ordinary Google Search index. There is no second, secret “AI index”. When you ask a question, the AI quietly runs a handful of related searches behind the scenes (Google calls this query fan-out), pulls the most useful indexed pages, and builds its answer from them, with citations.
Which means the entry requirements for AI citation are the entry requirements for Google search: your page has to be indexed, eligible to show a snippet, and genuinely worth quoting. Google says it plainly: there are no additional technical requirements for AI features, and trust is the strongest signal. The work you’ve done on your foundations, your content and your reputation is the qualification.
What About ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude and Copilot?
Each platform publishes how it gathers content, and the practical takeaway is short:
- ChatGPT search uses a crawler called OAI-SearchBot. If your website blocks it, you won’t appear in ChatGPT’s search results. (It’s separate from GPTBot, which is about model training. Blocking one doesn’t block the other.)
- Perplexity uses PerplexityBot to find and link sites in its answers.
- Claude uses ClaudeBot, and Claude’s web search can cite your pages directly.
- Copilot draws on Bing’s index, so ordinary Bing visibility is the lever.
Whether you allow these crawlers is a business decision, but here’s the trap we check for in every audit: plenty of websites are quietly blocking AI crawlers through an old robots.txt rule or an overzealous firewall setting, and their owners have no idea they’ve opted out of being cited. It takes minutes to check and it’s one of the most common fixes we make.
SEO vs AEO, side by side
| SEO | AEO | |
|---|---|---|
| The goal | Rank and get the click | Be cited in the answer, or named in the recommendation |
| Where you appear | Search results pages | AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Copilot |
| What success looks like | Positions, traffic, enquiries | Mentions, citations, and enquiries that arrive “pre-sold” |
| How you measure it | Rankings and analytics | Search Console’s Generative AI performance report, plus watching what the engines say about you |
| What the writing needs | Pages that answer searches well | The same, plus answers that stand alone near the top of the page and expertise only you could write |
| The foundation | Indexed, fast, trusted, well-linked | Exactly the same foundation |
That last row is the whole story. The foundation doesn’t change. The emphasis does.
If Your SEO Is Solid, You’re Most Of The Way To AEO
Everything a good SEO program built for you is what answer engines feed on: indexed and crawlable pages, clear site structure, content written by someone who knows the trade, consistent business details, real reviews. What AEO adds on top is emphasis rather than reinvention:
- Answer first, detail second. Put a complete, plain-text answer near the top of the page, then earn the deep-dive underneath. Engines cite passages that stand on their own.
- Write what only you could write. Generic content was already losing; AI-generated sameness has finished it off. A real opinion from someone who has done the work for twenty years is the thing engines and readers both reward. That’s why the durable play is content built on genuine expertise, not commodity filler.
- Be unmistakable about who you are. Same business name, services and locations everywhere: your site, your Google Business Profile, your directories. Confused engines don’t cite.
- Keyword discipline still matters. One page per intent, no two pages fighting for the same question. That’s ordinary keyword research that works for both search engines and AI.
When You Don’t Need To Worry About AEO Yet
Honest answer: not everyone should spend money on this today.
- Brand new business, still proving the model? Fix the offer first. No visibility strategy rescues a product people don’t want yet.
- Website can’t convert the visitors it already gets? More visibility just scales the leak. Fix the journey first.
- Local trade drowning in referral work? Your Google Business Profile and review flow probably matter more right now than AI citations. Do those well and you’re incidentally doing AEO anyway.
We tell people this in person too, even when it costs us a sale. If you’re not ready, we’d rather you knew.
Five AEO Myths To Keep Your Wallet Away From
The gold rush has produced advice that Google has directly, publicly knocked down. Before you buy any of these:
- “You need an llms.txt file.” Google says AI-only text files don’t help your visibility. Save the money.
- “You must chunk your content for the AI.” Google says there’s no need to write in a special format for AI. Write clearly for people.
- “Schema markup is required for AI features.” Structured data has its uses, but Google states no special schema is needed to appear in AI Overviews. It’s a tool, not a toll gate.
- “Stuff in every phrasing of the question.” Keyword padding didn’t work in 2015 and doesn’t work now.
- “Buy mentions across the web.” Inauthentic mentions are bought backlinks in a new outfit. Engines are built to smell them.
Worth saying: some of the biggest marketing platforms publishing “AEO guides” still recommend a few of these. We’d rather you heard what Google actually says.
What About Answer Engine Optimisation In Australia?
The AU market is moving. A growing list of Australian agencies now sells dedicated AEO or AI search optimisation services, and you’ll see confident statistics quoted about how many Australian searches now return an AI answer. Treat those numbers carefully: they’re agency and tool-vendor estimates, not figures Google publishes. What we can say from the businesses we look after on the Sunshine Coast is simpler: AI answers are appearing for real commercial questions in our clients’ markets, and the businesses being cited are the ones whose foundations were already strong.
What Is “AI Search Optimisation” Then?
Another label for the same work: making your business findable, understandable and citable by AI search. If a proposal uses this phrase, judge it by the checklist above, not by the name.
Where To Start
Start by finding out where you actually stand. Our AI Search Visibility Audit scores your website on five questions: can AI search find you, understand you, trust you, cite you, and would it recommend you. You get a plain-English report and a walkthrough with a senior strategist. If your SEO foundation turns out to be solid, we’ll tell you that, and you’ll have saved yourself buying a solution to a problem you don’t have.
Or just start with a coffee. We’re in Noosaville, we answer the phone, and our SEO services for Sunshine Coast businesses have always been built on the thing AI search now rewards most: content and foundations that were done properly the first time.
