Glossary · Core disciplines
Answer Engine Optimization (AEO)
Also called: AEO, answer engine optimisation
Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) is the practice of structuring web content so that answer engines such as Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT and Perplexity extract it and cite the source directly inside their generated answers.
The output unit of AEO is a citation inside an answer, not a ranking position in a list of links. That single shift changes the work: the direct answer has to come first under a question-shaped heading, the schema has to name the entity and author clearly, and the claims have to carry dates and sources a model can trust.
AEO overlaps heavily with classical SEO on the technical layer — both need clean HTML, valid markup and crawlable pages — but the scoring function differs. SEO optimises to be clicked; AEO optimises to be quoted, often by a user who reads the answer and never visits the page.
AEO differs from SEO in the target: SEO wins a ranked blue link, AEO wins a citation in the answer above the links.
A SaaS company that wants ChatGPT to cite it for "best CRM for B2B" applies AEO by adding a 30-word direct answer under each H2, a Quick Facts comparison table, and a named-expert byline with schema.org Person markup to its CRM landing page.