AEO overlaps heavily with GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) but is usually used for the narrower goal of winning a single, structured answer slot — a featured snippet, a People Also Ask expansion, a voice-assistant response — rather than broad citation across AI chat tools like ChatGPT or Perplexity. The tactics are similar either way: put a direct, self-contained answer near the top of the relevant section (often called the 'BLUF' or bottom-line-up-front approach), use question-shaped headings that mirror how people actually ask, keep the answer's sentence length reasonable for extraction, and back claims with a specific number or source rather than a vague claim. AEO content still needs to satisfy a human reader scrolling past the extracted snippet, so answer-first writing shouldn't come at the cost of the fuller explanation underneath.
Example
A glossary page structures its first paragraph as a self-contained, quotable definition, which Google then lifts verbatim into a featured snippet for the query 'what is a canonical tag.'
Related terms
Related terms
Related Reading
404 Error
A 404 error is the standard HTTP status code returned when a requested page doesn't exist on the server — the classic 'page not found' response.
A/B Testing (SEO)
A/B testing in SEO is the practice of showing two versions of a page element — usually a title tag, meta description, or on-page element — to see which one earns a better click-through rate or ranking outcome.
AI Citation
An AI citation happens when an AI assistant like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, or Gemini references or links to a specific page as the source for part of its answer.
