What is AEO (AI Engine Optimization)?

What is AEO?

AEO stands for AI Engine Optimization, also called Answer Engine Optimization. You will also see the abbreviation GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) used for much the same thing. Many names, one point: being found, understood and used as a source when someone puts a question to an AI assistant.

More and more people start their research in ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Grok or Perplexity – or simply read the AI answer Google places at the top of the results page. The assistant reads websites, assembles an answer, and sometimes points to its sources. The question is then no longer only «do we rank highly on Google?», but «are we used in the answer?».

What is the difference between AEO and SEO?

In short:

• SEO is about ranking in a list of links. The user clicks through to you.
• AEO is about being used in a finished answer. The user gets the answer directly, and may never click at all.

But the most important insight is this: AEO does not replace SEO. The two overlap heavily. A fast, tidy and accurate website with a clear structure is exactly what both search engines and language models reward. If you have already done a good piece of SEO work, you have done most of the job.

What is new is that the machine now reads your content in order to answer on the user's behalf, not just to sort it into a list. That makes it more important for the content to be clear, correct and easy to understand even without the surrounding context.

What should your business do?

These are the measures we think give the most back for the effort, in the order we would take them.

1. Start with what already works

A fast website, tidy HTML, clear headings and good accessibility help people, search engines and AI assistants all at once. This is not new work. It is good craftsmanship.

2. Structured data (JSON-LD)

Structured data is machine-readable information about who you are and what the page is about, placed in the code. With JSON-LD you can describe the company (Organization), articles (Article), services (Service) and common questions (FAQ).

The point is to remove ambiguity. Instead of the machine having to guess what «Vasser» is, it is told directly: a technology agency in Oslo, with these services and this contact information.

3. Decide whether AI crawlers may read your website

In robots.txt you control which robots may fetch your content. The most relevant right now are GPTBot and OAI-SearchBot (OpenAI), ClaudeBot (Anthropic), PerplexityBot, Google-Extended and Applebot-Extended.

This is a real choice, not just a technical detail. If you want to be visible in AI answers, you have to let them in. If you do not want your content used, you can shut them out. Note the nuance: Google-Extended does not control whether you appear in ordinary Google search, only whether the content is used for Google's AI.

4. Consider an llms.txt

llms.txt is a proposed convention: a short text file at /llms.txt that summarises the website in plain language, with links to the most important content. The idea is to give language models a tidy way in, rather than having them dig through menus and marketing copy.

Be aware that this is not an adopted standard, and that support is limited for now. But the file is cheap to make and easy to maintain, so the downside is small.

5. Write answers, not just marketing

Put the question in the heading, and answer it in the paragraph below. State the facts plainly: what you do, who you do it for, where you are based, and ideally what it costs. An assistant cannot repeat what you wrap in vague phrasing.

6. Keep your facts consistent

The same company name, address, phone number and service descriptions everywhere, both on the website and wherever else you are mentioned. If the information disagrees with itself, the machine becomes unsure which version is right – and is then less likely to use you.

7. Check what the assistants actually say

The simplest way to measure is to ask. Put questions about your own industry and company to ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity, and see what comes back. Are you mentioned? Is what they say correct? That gives you a concrete list of what needs fixing.

One small caveat

AEO is a young field with a lot of noise around it. Nobody can guarantee that you will be cited by an AI assistant, and we still know little about how they weigh sources against each other. So be sceptical of «AEO packages» that are, in practice, ordinary SEO with a new label.

What works is mostly what has always worked: genuine, clear and well-structured content on a technically solid website. The rest is detail you can adjust as the field settles.

Need a hand?

We have taken these steps on our own website, and are happy to look over yours. Whether it is structured data, robots.txt, llms.txt – or simply a tidy technical foundation to build on.

Get in touch for a friendly, no-obligation chat.