AEO vs SEO: The Key Differences Every Business Should Know

Both AEO and SEO aim to increase visibility, but the type of visibility they create differs. SEO focuses on how your content ranks, while AEO focuses on how your content is interpreted and credited when AI systems generate answers.

SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)
All the work that helps your pages appear for the right searches and earn qualified clicks: technical health, content quality, internal linking, and off-site authority. The outcome is sustained organic visibility and revenue.

AEO (Answer Engine Optimisation)
Work that makes your information easy for AI systems to understand, extract, and attribute. That means clear entities (people, organisations, products, places), structured data (Schema.org), answer-ready formatting, visible authorship, and up-to-date facts so answer engines can reuse your content and cite your brand.

Here is a table breaking down the differences of the two:

Is AEO just a new name for SEO?

The short answer is no. While they share many of the same foundations, AEO is not just SEO rebranded. It is an evolution of optimisation, shaped by how search now works in an AI-driven landscape. Understanding where AEO fits helps you build on what already works rather than starting from scratch.

AEO is a focused layer within SEO. If your site is slow, thin, or difficult to crawl, AEO will not fix it. You cannot have bad SEO and good AEO. Once the fundamentals are solid, AEO increases the chances that AI systems will surface your facts, show your name, and link back to your site.

Where they’re similar

Despite their differences, AEO and SEO share several core principles. They both rely on credibility, technical health, and topical authority to succeed. 

Credibility and E-E-A-T principles

Make authorship clear, show credentials when relevant, and back claims with evidence. This is consistent with Google’s guidance on helpful, reliable content and the public rater guidelines.

Technical website health

Crawlability, indexability, speed, clean internal links, and sound information architecture support both ranking and reliable extraction.

Topical depth and intent mapping

Content that genuinely solves user needs and is structured by intent performs better across classic search and AI surfaces.

Where they differ and why it matters

This is where SEO and AEO begin to diverge. Knowing these differences lets you plan for both visibility and authority in a changing search landscape.

Different types of outcomes

SEO aims for placements that earn clicks. AEO aims for citations in AI answers. When AI Overviews appear, the share of no-click outcomes rises, so earning the citation hedges against lost traffic.

Signal weighting

SEO still values links, comprehensive content, and page experience. AEO adds weight to clarity and provenance. Use accurate names and specs, consistent details across profiles, and visible dates and references.

Format bias

SEO pages need comprehensive coverage for intent. AEO-friendly pages make facts liftable with scannable subheadings, short definitions at the top, and small data-dense tables. Search Engine Land recommends information-rich tables and lists for easier interpretation.

Ranking volatility

Search engines like Google change results over time, a webpage can rank for months if not years in the top results. However with LLMs such as ChatGPT, results can vary heavily with individual users due to previous conversations and saved data. Meaning results can be more volatile and harder to track than traditional SEO.  

Which is better: SEO or AEO?

It’s not a question of one or the other. SEO and AEO complement each other. SEO ensures visibility; AEO ensures recognition. If your technical and content foundations are weak, fix SEO first. Once your base is solid, layer AEO to increase your chance of being the credited source inside AI answers. Teams that do both well see stronger brand mentions, steadier organic performance, and resilience as no-click outcomes rise with AI features.

What’s the difference between an SEO agency and an AEO agency?

Understanding the distinction between an SEO agency and an AEO-focused agency helps clarify what kind of support your business needs. While they share many overlapping skills, their methods and performance metrics differ.

SEO agency

Full-stack organic growth: technical audits and fixes, content strategy, on-page optimisation, internal linking, and off-site authority. Long-term, measurable improvements in qualified traffic and conversions.

AEO agency

Focus on schema coverage, answer-ready formatting, brand and data consistency, and measurement across AI surfaces such as AI Overviews, assistants, and citation-forward engines. The packaging usually sits alongside core SEO because authority and crawl health drive selection.