Answer Engine Optimization

What’s the difference between SEO, AEO, and GEO?

Name: What's the difference between SEO, AEO, and GEO?
Uploaded: 2026-04-17T05:25:27-07:00
Duration: 1 min 11 s
Description: SEO earns a ranked link in search results. AEO (answer engine optimization) makes your business the answer an AI tool gives when someone asks a question. GEO (generative engine optimization) gets your business cited as a source inside AI-generated responses.

SEO earns a ranked link in search results. AEO (answer engine optimization) makes your business the answer an AI tool gives when someone asks a question. GEO (generative engine optimization) gets your business cited as a source inside AI-generated responses. The three overlap, and the work starts in the same place: clear, verifiable information about who you are.

From Jenna Ahern, Founder and CEO of Guardian Owl Digital and AI lecturer at the University of Louisville College of Business.

1 minute 11 seconds · Published April 17, 2026 · Watch on YouTube

Key points

SEO ranks pages. AEO gets your business pulled into the answer. GEO gets you cited as a source.
Discovery increasingly starts with an answer, not a list of links.

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