SEO has acquired some new relatives. Depending on which article you’ve just read, you may now need GEO, Generative Engine Optimisation, AEO, Answer Engine Optimisation, AI SEO, LLM optimisation, or some exciting combination of all four.
New terminology is not automatically nonsense. The way people search is genuinely changing and there are reasonable questions about how businesses appear inside AI-generated answers. The problem starts when a useful shift in search behaviour gets turned into the suggestion that everything we knew about websites stopped working last Tuesday, when in fact, it did not.
What are GEO and AEO actually trying to describe?
AEO generally refers to making information easy for answer-based systems to understand and use. GEO is normally used more specifically for trying to increase visibility within generative AI systems such as Google’s AI features, ChatGPT, Gemini and similar tools.
As broad concepts, neither is particularly unreasonable. If somebody asks an AI tool a question about the service you provide, it would be useful if the system could understand your business and confidently use your website as a source.
Where we become more cautious is the suggestion that doing this requires an entirely separate technical discipline. Google currently says its normal SEO best practices continue to apply to its generative AI search features. There are no additional technical requirements for appearing as a supporting link in AI Overviews or AI Mode beyond being eligible for Google Search itself.
That does not mean nothing has changed. The types of questions people ask can be different. Someone using an AI assistant may write a much longer, more conversational request than they would type into Google. They may also ask follow-up questions, compare several options within one conversation and receive an answer without visiting every source involved.
This changes the competitive landscape, but it does not necessarily create a new checklist of magic AI tags. It makes clear explanations, useful expertise and genuinely distinctive information more important. It also increases the value of having accurate structured business and product information that machines can confidently interpret.
Be suspicious of optimisation without substance
If a GEO strategy consists of creating hundreds of slightly different question pages, rewriting everything into robotic question-and-answer formats or inserting phrases solely because somebody believes an LLM likes them, we would be cautious.
There is a useful irony here. As AI makes it easier for everybody to generate average content, having something original to say becomes more valuable rather than less. Actual experience, case studies, useful research, proprietary information and a clear point of view give a website something that cannot be recreated simply by asking another model to summarise the first ten search results.
So do you need GEO? You need to understand that search behaviour is changing, make sure your site can be discovered and understood by the systems people are using, and keep an eye on whether AI search begins generating visibility and traffic for your business. Whether you need to call all of that GEO is largely up to you. We would rather spend the time improving the website than debating the acronym.
