AEO vs SEO
Most of the work is shared. The differences are narrow but real.
The short answer
SEO earns a ranking people click. AEO earns a sentence a machine repeats. The craft is largely shared: clear pages, credible sources, clean technical access. What differs is the unit of success, the measurement and how much you control.
What ranked on 18 September 2026: Results are mostly tool vendors and agency explainers. Google's own guide says no separate markup or hidden lever exists, which is the least commercial answer and the best starting point.
Last reviewed · 5 sources
An answer engine reads pages, or an index built from pages. Both routes run through familiar SEO work.
Everything else sold as an AEO speciality is SEO under a new label.
SEO has engine-reported impressions, clicks and positions. AEO has partial reports, so you also sample.
| SEO | AEO | |
|---|---|---|
| Unit of success | A page at a position | A passage quoted in an answer |
| Who reports it | Search Console: impressions, clicks, positions | Partial: Google impressions, Bing citations. Sample the rest |
| Main off-site lever | Links | Accurate descriptions on sources engines trust |
| Failure mode | Ranking below a competitor | Described as something you are not |
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Questions
Largely. The differences that survive scrutiny are extractability, third-party description, sampled measurement and volatility.
Not in practice. Engines read your pages or an index built from them, so findable also means quotable.
It helps a machine confirm what a page says. Google says no special markup is needed for its AI features.
Evidence, labelled
Each claim is labelled and sourced. Google rows speak only for Google.
Last reviewed · 5 sources
Optimising for AI search is still SEO.
Confirmed
Google's guide says so, last updated 10 July 2026. It speaks only for Google Search.
AEO needs its own markup or files.
Not required
Google: no new machine-readable files, AI text files, markup or Markdown.
Google, AI optimization guide (opens in a new tab) source 1Google, AI features (opens in a new tab) source 2
Engines cite the same sources for the same answer.
Reported
Google AI Mode and AI Overviews shared 13.7% of cited URLs while their answers were 86% similar in meaning.
AEO has engine-reported data like SEO.
Confirmed
Google reports AI impressions and Bing reports citations. Neither shows position inside an answer.
Google, AI performance reports (opens in a new tab) source 1Bing, AI Performance (opens in a new tab) source 2
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.