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What is answer engine optimization (AEO)?
Answer engine optimization gets your business named in the answers AI assistants give. What it covers, how it differs from SEO, and where to start.
The short version
- AEO is getting your business named, accurately, when people ask an AI assistant for a recommendation.
- It builds on SEO: the assistant still has to find and read you.
- What it adds is machine-readable facts, consistent citations and pages that answer questions directly.
- The result is measured by asking the engines real questions, not by a ranking position.
The short definition
Answer engine optimization (AEO) is the work of making your business the one an AI assistant names when someone asks it a question you should be the answer to. "Answer engine" covers ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, Google's AI Overviews and similar tools that reply with an answer instead of a list of links.
Why it became its own discipline
On a search results page, being tenth still means being on the page. In an AI answer, there may only be three to five names, and no second page. A business that is not in the answer is not ranked low; it is absent from that conversation.
The answer is also written from a few sources the engine read in that moment. That makes two new things matter: whether the engine can read and verify you, and whether the pages it reads describe you correctly.
What AEO work actually involves
- Access. Letting AI crawlers read your site (robots.txt), and keeping key content in plain HTML.
- Entity facts. Structured data that states your name, location, services and contact details unambiguously.
- Consistency. The same name, address and phone number on every listing and directory.
- Corroboration. Reviews, listings and mentions on sources the engines trust.
- Answer pages. Pages that answer specific buyer questions in their first lines.
- Measurement. Asking the engines buyers' questions on a schedule and recording who they name and what they read.
Where to start
Find out where you stand first. Ask an assistant the question your best customer would ask, and look at who it names and which pages it cites. Our free check does this with an engine that searches the live web, and also lists the technical problems on your site with the fix for each.