GEO vs SEO vs AEO: the difference in one table

SEO is the work of earning a link in Google's results, and AEO is the work of earning the one answer box at the top. GEO is the work of getting your business named inside the written answer that ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity or Grok gives a buyer.

All three use the same website. They give three different results, and you measure each one in a different way.

People search "GEO vs SEO" about 2,900 times a month in the US. "AEO vs SEO" gets 1,900 searches and "AEO vs GEO" 1,600 (DataForSEO, read 7 October 2026). Many people use the three words loosely. Here is the plain comparison.

The difference in one table

SEO competes for a link, AEO for one answer box, and GEO for a name inside a written answer.

The glossary entry on AEO gives the full definition.

Is GEO just SEO with a new name?

No. Most of the work is shared, but the result is different, and a Google rank does not tell you whether ChatGPT names you.

The overlap between ranking and being cited is smaller in the newer Ahrefs study. In July 2025, 76% of pages cited in Google's AI Overviews ranked in Google's top 10 for the same query (Ahrefs). Ahrefs reported 38% in March 2026. Ahrefs says part of the drop may come from better ways of finding citations, so the two numbers cannot be compared directly. The figures show how often a rank and a citation go together. They do not show that a rank causes a citation.

AI Overviews are Google's own AI answers. The five AI platforms do not publish a rank report of their own. You see the result only when you read the answer.

Most of the steps are SEO steps. The extra step is reading the answers themselves. More on the term is in what is GEO.

What stays the same

Google and the AI platforms both read pages, so much of the work is the same. Each page should answer one question clearly, with real facts and a date. Your business should be listed accurately on the directories for your category. Other websites should mention you. Your site should load fast, and a crawler should be able to read it without running JavaScript.

None of this is new. Good SEO work already covers much of it.

What changes

GEO changes four things about the work.

1. The result is a name, not a link. Page 1 on Google shows a list of links. A written AI answer names a few businesses. If you are not one of them, the buyer does not see you in that answer.
2. The AI reads other people's pages about you. We recorded every page the five platforms cited across 750 answers on 7 October 2026: 2,875 different websites. Addresses containing "best" were cited 828 times. A wider study looked at AI search citations (AirOps and Digital Applied, 2026). It found that 81% of cited lists sat on other people's sites, not on the brand's own.
3. You cannot see it in Search Console. Google reports your rankings and clicks. Search Console does not show what ChatGPT said about you this week. To know, you have to put the questions to the AI platforms, by hand or with a tool, and keep doing it.
4. Answers vary. The same question, asked twice, can return different names. One check is a sample. A weekly series shows the direction.

What our scan shows on questions like this one

Questions about what these words mean almost never lead to a product being named. On 7 October 2026 we put 150 buyer questions to the five AI platforms. On the "what, how, why" questions, the AI platforms named a tool on average in 0.1 to 0.6 of 5 answers. They cited guides and explained in their own words.

On "which tool" questions, 2.1 to 4.4 of 5 answers named brands. Each platform also read different websites, so the same business can be named on one platform and missing on another.

That means two jobs for your business. When the question is "what is" or "how do I", be the page the AI quotes. When it is "which business", be on the pages the AI reads, so it can name you. The full numbers and the data file are in the research report.

What to do, in order

1. Keep doing SEO. A Google rank still helps. A page that answers one question clearly serves Google and the AI platforms.
2. Find out what the AI platforms say about you today. Write down five questions your buyers ask. Put them to all five AI platforms. Note who is named and which pages are cited. The guide to checking what ChatGPT says about your brand has the table.
3. Get onto the pages they cite. Look at the lists, directories and comparison pages in those answers. Request a listing where your business fits. Getting recommended by ChatGPT covers this step in detail.
4. Write one page for each buyer question. Put the answer in the first two sentences, so a reader or an AI can quote it alone.
5. Repeat the same questions every week. One check is a snapshot. A weekly series of the same questions shows the direction.

Limits

These numbers come from one scan on one day, 7 October 2026, asked as a buyer in the UAE. We asked through each platform's API, the connection that software uses, and those answers can differ from the apps people use. The data shows what the AI platforms named and cited that day, not why. A buyer in the UK or another market may see other brands. These are 2026 definitions, and the words still shift. The AI platforms read the web on their own schedule, so nobody can promise a date. The weekly scan shows the trend either way.

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