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Quick Answer
SEO optimises for ranking in Google's list of links. AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) optimises for featured snippets and voice answers. GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) optimises for citations inside AI chat answers like ChatGPT and Perplexity. In, brands need all three because their winners now overlap by under 20%.
In you'll see four acronyms used almost interchangeably — SEO, AEO, GEO, and sometimes LLMO. They overlap, but they target different surfaces. Here's the clean version.
Quick comparison
Discipline
Targets
Goal
SEO
Google's blue-link results
Rank high in the list
AEO
Featured snippets, voice, AI Overviews
Win the direct answer box
GEO
ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity
Get cited inside the AI answer
SEO — Search Engine Optimization
The classic discipline: keywords, technical health, backlinks, and content quality to rank in Google's organic list. Still essential — the pages that rank are often the ones AI engines pull from.
AEO — Answer Engine Optimization
AEO targets the answer, not the link: featured snippets, "People Also Ask," voice assistants, and Google AI Overviews. It relies on concise answers, FAQ schema, and question-based structure.
GEO — Generative Engine Optimization
GEO targets citations inside AI-generated chat answers. It needs extractable answers, strong entity signals, third-party brand mentions, and AI-crawler access via llms.txt.
Why you need all three
Research today shows the pages winning AI citations and the pages ranking on Google now share fewer than 20% of winners — down from about 70% two years earlier. Optimising for only one surface leaves the others to competitors.
The good news
These disciplines share a foundation: clear structure, direct answers, factual specificity, and authority. Build that once and you compete on all three surfaces. Boxfy delivers the combined stack through AI SEO, GEO & AEO services.
Want to win all three surfaces?
Boxfy builds one content system that ranks on Google, wins snippets, and gets cited by AI.
Start with SEO fundamentals and AEO answer blocks — they're the base. Then layer GEO signals like llms.txt and brand mentions. Boxfy builds all three together.
What is LLMO?
LLMO (Large Language Model Optimization) is another name for GEO — optimising to be cited by large language models. The terms are used interchangeably today.
Do AEO and GEO help each other?
Yes. Concise, well-structured answers that win snippets (AEO) are also the passages AI engines lift and cite (GEO). The same content serves both.
