The acronyms
One term came from a paper, one from SEO and one from agency positioning. The gap in practice is small.
The short answer
GEO is the academic term, defined in a 2023 research paper. AEO grew from featured snippets and voice answers. LLMO mostly rebrands the same work. They differ in scope, not in method.
What ranked on 18 September 2026: The GEO query returns the arXiv paper first, then Wikipedia and Google's guide. The agency phrasing returns almost only UK service pages. One term, two SERPs that barely overlap.
Last reviewed · 3 sources
Provenance explains why the definitions disagree.
It reports visibility gains of up to 40% on its own benchmark. That is not a client result.
Use the term your reader searches and define it in the first line.
| GEO | AEO | |
|---|---|---|
| Origin | Research paper, 2023 | SEO practice, before 2020 |
| Scope | Generated answers from LLM-backed engines | Any direct answer, including snippets and voice |
| Best published evidence | Benchmark with a stated method | Years of practice, little controlled |
| Who uses the word | Researchers, some tool vendors | Agencies and buyers |
| Risk of the term | Confused with geographic targeting | Confused with customs accreditation |
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Questions
In practice the work overlaps almost entirely. Ask any vendor selling two budgets to name work that belongs to only one.
No. Here it means generative engine optimisation. In advertising, geo usually means location targeting.
The one your buyers type, defined in the first sentence. For most markets that is AEO.
Evidence, labelled
Each claim is labelled and sourced. Google rows speak only for Google.
Last reviewed · 3 sources
GEO was defined in a 2023 research paper.
Confirmed
Aggarwal et al., first submitted 16 November 2023, accepted to KDD 2024.
The paper's 40% is a result you can expect.
Reported
It is a ceiling on one benchmark with a GPT-3.5 based engine. Gains varied by domain.
GEO needs tactics Google does not support.
Not required
Google names both terms and says many suggested hacks are not effective or supported. It treats the work as SEO.
Vendors agree what the terms mean.
Reported
Microsoft's guide frames SEO as getting found, AEO as helping AI explain and GEO as helping AI trust. Other vendors split them differently.
Go deeper
Next step
Tell me your site and what you are seeing. I will say which points above apply to you and which do not.