SEO: ranking in search results
Search Engine Optimization is the original discipline: making your pages rank in a list of results on Google and Bing. It rewards relevant content, sound on-page signals (titles, headings, structure), fast mobile-friendly pages, and backlink authority.
SEO is still the foundation — most of what helps AEO and GEO starts with a well-optimized, trustworthy page.
AEO: winning the direct answer
Answer Engine Optimization targets direct-answer features — featured snippets, People Also Ask, and voice answers — where the search engine lifts a concise answer straight onto the results page. It rewards clear question-and-answer content and structured data like FAQ markup.
If SEO is about ranking, AEO is about being the answer extracted from the ranking.
GEO: getting cited by AI engines
Generative Engine Optimization is the newest layer: optimizing to be read and cited inside the AI-generated answers of ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google's AI Overviews. It leans hardest on machine-readable structure, clear definitions, quotable facts, and letting AI crawlers reach your content in the first place.
As more searches end in an AI answer instead of a click, GEO is where a growing share of discovery — and citation traffic — happens. You can measure yours in seconds with a free GEO checker.
Where to focus
You don't have to choose — they share a base. A fast, secure, well-structured page with clear, citable content and good markup helps all three at once. Start with solid SEO, add FAQ-style answer content for AEO, and make sure your structured data and crawlability are in place for GEO.
WebAnalyzer scores SEO and GEO together (plus speed, accessibility and security), so one report shows where you stand across the whole spectrum.