What is AEO (Answer Engine Optimization)?
A plain-language definition of Answer Engine Optimization: how ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and Gemini pick sources, and how to make your pages more citable.
AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) is the practice of making web pages clear, structured, and quotable so AI answer engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and Gemini can cite them when composing answers.
What is AEO?
AEO stands for Answer Engine Optimization. While SEO asks whether Google will rank you, AEO asks whether an AI system will trust and reuse passages from your page.
How is AEO different from SEO?
SEO focuses on rankings, links, and technical crawlability. AEO focuses on direct answers, FAQ patterns, summaries, structured data, and scannable chunks that models can extract.
What improves AEO on a page?
- A clear definition near the top (“X is…”)
- A TL;DR or Key Takeaways block
- Question-style H2s with short answers
- FAQPage JSON-LD matching on-page FAQs
- Lists, freshness dates, and a few authoritative outbound links
How do I check my AEO?
Run a free dual SEO + AEO audit on seosync.app. SEOSync scores both, then shows the gaps to fix first.