GEO vs SEO vs AEO: what changes and what does not

GEO vs SEO vs AEO: what is the difference?

GEO vs SEO vs AEO is one discipline with three outputs: SEO earns a ranked link, AEO earns a direct answer, GEO earns a citation inside an AI-generated response.

For the marketing lead pitched all three as separate retainers: decide which difference matters for your site, and stop paying twice.

Its AI optimization guide, last updated 10 July 2026, says that "optimizing for generative AI search is optimizing for the search experience, and thus still SEO." Microsoft's Bing team says something close. We agree, with one caveat: measurement, entity work and off-site mentions do differ. Those gaps are where the money should go, inside AI visibility optimisation, not in a second agency.

What does GEO mean in marketing?

GEO, generative engine optimization, means shaping content so AI answer engines retrieve it, trust it and cite it when they write a response to a user's question.

The term is young. It comes from a paper by Pranjal Aggarwal and five co-authors, "GEO: Generative Engine Optimization", first posted on 16 November 2023 and accepted to KDD 2024. The authors "introduce Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)" and report that it "can boost visibility by up to 40% in generative engine responses."

AEO, answer engine optimization, means being the answer itself: the featured snippet, People Also Ask and, increasingly, the reply an assistant gives. Google's guide defines both labels, "AEO" for "answer engine optimization" and "GEO" for "generative engine optimization", as terms for work on visibility in AI search experiences, and calls that work "still SEO".

The same guide says many suggested "hacks" aren't effective or supported by how Google Search actually works, and that content needs no tiny chunks and no new machine-readable files for AI. Its featured snippets page, last updated 10 December 2025, answers how to mark a page as a featured snippet with "You can't."

The same post says "traditional SEO fundamentals still matter." Our end-to-end GEO guide covers the full build.

SEO schema vs GEO schema: is there a difference?

SEO schema and GEO schema are the same markup: Google says "there's no special schema.org markup you need to add" for generative AI search.

That sentence sits in Google's AI optimization guide, which opens the same paragraph with "Structured data isn't required for generative AI search". Its AI features page, last updated 10 December 2025, repeats it: "There's also no special schema.org structured data that you need to add." A page qualifies for AI Overviews and AI Mode when it is "indexed and eligible to be shown in Google Search with a snippet".

Bing's October 2025 post agrees: "Schema is a type of code that helps search engines and AI systems understand your content".

The short answer to "seo schema vs geo schema": keep Organization, Article, Product and the other types that match the visible page, with identical values, and stop there. One type has lost its visible payoff: Google says the FAQ rich result "will no longer appear in Google Search starting May 7, 2026", and removed its documentation on 15 June 2026.

The tiebreaker for any vendor claim about markup and AI Overviews is Google's own documentation, dated and quotable; check each such claim against it before it goes into a Google Search and Ads plan.

One page, three outputs: what actually changes?

Three things change between SEO, AEO and GEO: the unit you measure, the entity work behind the page, and the mentions of your brand on other sites.

• Measurement. SEO counts clicks. Google's generative AI performance report in Search Console counts impressions: "how many times links to your site were shown to a user in a generative AI feature on Google Search", for AI Overviews and AI Mode, rolled out to all websites from 31 August 2026. Bing counts citations. AI Performance has been in public preview since 10 February 2026, and its 16 June 2026 post says Citation Share is beginning to roll out in preview, globally: "the percentage of citations attributed to your site out of all citations shown across all sites for that same grounding query." We found no dedicated AEO report from Google or Bing.
• Entity work. A ranking can reward a page; a citation has to credit a source. Bing's Microsoft AI team put the shift plainly on 6 May 2026: "Search optimizes for likelihood of relevance. Grounding must measure strength of evidence." Name the company, product and author one way on every page.
• Off-site mentions. Google's AI features page says both AI Overviews and AI Mode "may use a 'query fan-out' technique", "issuing multiple related searches across subtopics and data sources", so what other sites say about you can enter the answer. Its AI optimization guide also warns that seeking inauthentic "mentions" across the web "isn't as helpful as it might seem." Earn coverage; do not seed it.

Which SEO, AEO and GEO tasks are shared?

Nine of the twelve tasks on our checklist are shared by SEO, AEO and GEO; three differ, and each row names its source or says it is our method.

We built the list from what the two search engines publish. A task counts as shared when the same page work serves all three. Sort it another way and you get a different count, so read the direction, not the 9. The matrix is the count; the table is the evidence.

Rows 1 to 9 are the work a competent SEO programme already does. If your agency skips rows 3 to 6, that is an SEO gap first. Rows 10 to 12 are where a GEO plan earns its line items, and both reports already sit in Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools.

Which optimisation do I actually need: SEO, AEO or GEO?

Most sites need all nine shared tasks and a split of effort across the three differing ones, weighted by where buyers find you today.

The tool below sets that split. It is an illustrative heuristic and leaves rows 1 to 9 at full effort.

The B2B row fits software and financial services sellers whose buyers shortlist in ChatGPT or Perplexity; input B is your estimate, so test it against win-loss notes. Our AEO playbook for B2B walks the steps.

On hiring: an SEO agency that already does rows 1 to 9 well can add rows 10 to 12; a GEO specialist who cannot show rows 1 to 9 is selling a quarter of the job. Our comparison of an SEO agency vs GEO consultancy sets out the questions to ask either one.

Do this today

Start with the two free AI reports from Google and Bing, then cut any line item that duplicates rows 1 to 9 of the checklist.

1. In Search Console, open the generative AI performance report and export impressions by page for the last three months.
2. In Bing Webmaster Tools, open AI Performance (public preview) and note your top ten grounding queries and, where it has reached your account, Citation Share (rolling out in preview).
3. Put every SEO, AEO and GEO line item you pay for against the checklist table. Two line items on one row means you pay twice.
4. Spend the saving on rows 11 and 12: one naming standard for the company, products and authors, and coverage you earn on sites your buyers already read.

The decision rule for GEO vs SEO vs AEO is short: if a proposal cannot name the unit it will move, and the report that unit appears in, do not sign it.