# AEO vs GEO: the difference, *and what to measure*

AEO vs GEO is a question of vocabulary more than of practice. AEO, answer engine optimisation, and GEO, generative engine optimisation, are two names for the same work: getting AI answer engines such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews to read your pages and name your brand when a buyer asks. This page defines both, says how they differ from SEO, and says what a measurement of either has to do.

## The two terms

### AEO: answer engine optimisation

Named from what the engines do: they answer. A buyer asks “which payroll software should a small Indian startup use” and the engine reads a set of pages, decides, and names three products. AEO is everything that makes your brand one of the three. The term is used mostly by the people who build measurement tools.

### GEO: generative engine optimisation

Named from how the engines work: they generate. The answer is written fresh from sources each time, so the sources have to be written in a way a generated answer can lift from: a clear claim, a plain sentence, a fact with a number. The term comes from a 2023 research paper and is used more by academics and agencies.

### AI visibility

The thing both are trying to move: whether, and how often, the engines name your brand for the questions your buyers ask. This is the number a tool measures, and the name Oftheard uses, because it is what a buyer of the software is actually asking for.

## Where they differ from SEO

- **A list versus a few names.** Search returns ten links and the buyer chooses. An answer engine names two or three brands and stops. Ranking sixth still gets read; not being named gets nothing.

- **Different crawlers.** The engines read with their own crawlers, GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot and the rest, which a robots file or a firewall can turn away without touching Googlebot. The first check of AEO is whether they get in.

- **Quotability over keywords.** An engine lifts a sentence, not a page. A page that states what the company does, for whom, at what price, in plain sentences, gets quoted; a page of slogans does not.

- **Sources the engines trust.** For many questions the engines answer from directories, review sites and comparison articles rather than from the brand’s own site. Being on those pages is part of the work.

- **Different answers in different places.** The engines search with the location. The same question from Chennai and from Delhi returns different names, so the measurement has to be made where the buyers are.

## What a measurement has to do

- Ask the engines the questions buyers actually ask, from where the buyers are, with search on.

- Store every answer whole: who was recommended, who was only named, which pages were read, which engine and model build answered, and whether it searched.

- Check whether the AI crawlers can read the brand’s own site, and which pages they actually read.

- Repeat the same questions on the same instruments over time, and never pool answers made on different instruments into one number.

- End with a list: the pages to write, the places to be cited, and the evidence for each line.

That is what Oftheard does for brands in India: six engines asked as a buyer in India, a 100-check site audit, a sensor for the crawler reads, and a plan at the end of every session. The [about page](https://oftheard.in/about) says how, and the [best-tools page](https://oftheard.in/best-ai-visibility-tools-india) says where another tool is the better choice.

## Questions people ask

**What is AEO?**

AEO, answer engine optimisation, is the work of getting an answer engine such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity or Google AI Overviews to name and recommend your brand when someone asks a question. The name comes from the fact that these engines answer rather than list: they read sources, decide, and give a few names.

**What is GEO?**

GEO, generative engine optimisation, is the same work named from the other side: the engines generate their answers, so the pages they read have to be written so a generated answer can quote them. The term comes from a 2023 research paper and is used more in academic and agency writing; AEO is used more by tool makers.

**Is there any real difference between AEO and GEO?**

In practice, no. Both mean being read by the AI crawlers, being quotable, and being the answer to the question a buyer actually asks. Some writers use GEO for the content work and AEO for the measurement, but the engines do not know the difference. What matters is that the number is measured where your buyers are and that it comes with the pages to write.

**How are AEO and GEO different from SEO?**

SEO ranks pages in a list of ten and a buyer chooses. An answer engine names two or three brands and stops; a brand not named is not considered. SEO still matters, because the engines search before they answer, but the work above it is different: crawl access for the AI crawlers, pages written so an answer can be lifted out, and presence on the sites the engines cite.

**How do you measure AEO or GEO?**

Ask the engines the questions your buyers ask, from where your buyers are, and record who was recommended, who was named, and which pages were read; check whether the AI crawlers can read your site; and repeat the same questions on the same instruments over time. Oftheard does this for brands in India, with every answer stored with its engine, model build, location and language.

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Source: https://oftheard.in/aeo-vs-geo
Oftheard, hello@oftheard.in