AEO (Answer Engine Optimization)

Answer engines do not return a list of links. They synthesize an answer from sources they have indexed, then cite a handful of them. AEO is the work of becoming one of those cited sources.

AEO best practices include: leading each page with a direct, quotable answer (often called an 'answer block'); structuring content with FAQPage and Article JSON-LD; using semantic HTML (H1, H2, ordered/unordered lists); publishing a glossary of defined terms; and surfacing authorship and dateModified signals.

AEO overlaps heavily with AgenticSEO and GEO. The terms are often used interchangeably, though AEO is more commonly used in marketing literature and GEO is more commonly used in academic literature.