Everyone knew SEO. Now GEO and AEO have joined it, and the three terms are cheerfully mixed up in proposals and LinkedIn posts. That is a pity, because they describe three different places where a customer can find you, and each place asks for slightly different work.
This article puts the three side by side: what they mean, where they overlap, where they diverge, and which of the three deserves most of a Dutch SME’s attention right now.
The short version
- SEO (Search Engine Optimization): being found in the classic list of results on Google or Bing. The goal is a click to your site.
- AEO (Answer Engine Optimization): supplying the direct answer a search engine shows at the top, such as a featured snippet, a “People also ask” box or a voice assistant reading out one answer. The goal is being chosen as the answer.
- GEO (Generative Engine Optimization): being cited in the answer an AI assistant writes, such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity or Google’s AI overviews. The goal is being named as a source.
All three start from the same question: does a machine understand what is on your page, and does that machine believe you? The difference is what happens to your content afterwards.
SEO: the foundation is still the foundation
SEO is the oldest channel and for most businesses still the foundation. An AI assistant that searches live gets its sources from a search engine, and according to Google there are no additional requirements or special optimisations for its AI Overviews and AI Mode (Google Search Central). Whoever is not visible in the normal results therefore stands little chance in the AI answers.
The ingredients are familiar: a technically sound site, pages that match what people type, authority through references from other sites, and a good user experience. For a local business, add Google Business Profile: for many service providers the map results are the main source of enquiries.
What is changing is that the click is getting scarcer. Google answers more and more questions on the results page itself. SEO therefore delivers less traffic per position than five years ago, but remains the foundation the other two build on.
AEO: the one answer at the top
AEO targets questions with a short, factual answer. How long does building a website take. What does a web shop cost. How much VAT applies to a service. For those, Google shows a featured snippet, a definition or a step list, lifted directly from a single page.
Winning that spot requires a specific way of writing. The question appears literally in a heading. The answer follows directly underneath in forty to sixty words, in plain language, without a run-up. The explanation comes afterwards. A clear list or table helps. Since August 2023, FAQ schema only produces a rich result for a limited group of sites (Google), but a question in a heading with the answer below it stays just as clear for readers and search engines.
AEO is also the territory of voice assistants. Whoever asks a smart speaker “when is the best time to redo a website” gets one source read out. That is AEO in its purest form.
GEO: being named in a written answer
GEO is the youngest of the three and the hardest to measure. A generative assistant reads several sources and writes a new answer from them. You are not ranked but summarised, and with a bit of luck named.
What works here overlaps heavily with AEO, with a few accents. Consistency across several sources weighs more: a model that encounters your company on your site, on LinkedIn, in reviews and in an industry directory with the same description names you with more confidence. Concrete figures weigh more, because a model prefers citing a fact to citing a promise. And original insight weighs more, because a model that reads ten identical pages does not need the eleventh.
A practical difference from SEO: in GEO, what is not on your site counts as well. A guest article, a mention in a local newspaper, a well-filled business profile: they are all confirmations a model uses to decide whether you are a reliable source.
Where they overlap
Most of the work is shared. A fast, accessible site. Pages with one clear subject. Headings that ask questions and paragraphs that answer them immediately. Structured data for your organisation, your services and your frequently asked questions. Real figures instead of marketing language. Consistent company details everywhere.
Whoever has that in order is doing all three at once, even without knowing the terms.
Where they diverge
SEO rewards breadth: many pages that together cover a topic, plus links from outside. AEO rewards precision: the one answer that is better and shorter than all the others. GEO rewards authority confirmed outside your own site, plus content that says something new.
Measurement differs too. You measure SEO with positions and clicks in Search Console. You measure AEO by checking which fragments Google lifts from you. For Google you measure GEO in Search Console, which counts impressions in AI Overviews and AI Mode and since 2026 also has a separate report for them (Google). For ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity it is still manual work: a fixed list of questions you put to them periodically, with a note of whether you are named.
What this means for an SME in the Netherlands
Do not choose a channel, choose an order. SEO first, because without findability in the classic index the other two do not even see you. Then AEO, because it is little extra work when you are rewriting pages anyway: put the question in the heading and the answer beneath it. GEO largely grows out of that, provided you align your company details everywhere and secure mentions beyond your own site.
The agencies that sell you a separate “GEO package” alongside your SEO are usually selling you the same work twice.
Frequently asked questions
Will GEO replace SEO over time?
No. Assistants that search live get their sources from a search engine. As long as that holds, classic findability remains the precondition for being read at all. What does change is that the click is more often replaced by a mention.
Do I need separate pages for each of the three?
No. One well-structured page serves all three: a clear heading with the question, a direct answer, an explanation with figures, an FAQ with schema markup. Separate pages per channel say the same thing two or three times, and then Google has to choose which one to show.
What is the difference between GEO and AEO?
AEO aims to supply the one short answer that a search engine or voice assistant lifts word for word from a single page. GEO aims to be named in a newly written AI answer that summarises several sources. You measure AEO by the fragments Google takes from you, GEO by the mentions in AI answers. The work overlaps largely: a question in the heading, the answer right below it.
How do I know whether an agency really masters this?
Ask for an example of a client who is named in an AI answer, and ask how they measure it. Anyone who only talks about “AI optimisation” but has no measurement method is doing ordinary SEO under a new name.
Next step
Take your five most important pages and check each one: is the question in the heading, is the answer in the first paragraph, are there figures, and do the company details match what is elsewhere online? That is one afternoon’s work and it serves SEO, AEO and GEO at the same time.
Want us to look at it? This is a standard part of our SEO and content service. Send us your website address and we will show you where you stand in the three channels today.
