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Glossary

Answer engine optimisation (AEO)

Answer engine optimisation (AEO) is the work of making a website easy for AI answer engines, such as ChatGPT search, Perplexity, and Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode, to find, understand and cite when they answer a question. Generative engine optimisation (GEO) means much the same thing. Google's AI optimisation guide says optimising for generative AI search is still SEO and needs no special files or markup. In practice, AEO means crawlable pages that AI search crawlers are allowed to reach, a direct answer near the top of each page, clear headings, specific facts, visible authors and dates, and a consistent description of the firm across the web.

Also called AEO, Generative engine optimisation (GEO), GEO, AI search optimisation

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Example

In a law firm

For example, a retailer asks ChatGPT which Melbourne law firms handle commercial lease disputes. A firm whose leasing page opens with a plain two-sentence answer, names the partner who leads the work, shows when it was last updated and lets AI search crawlers in is easier to cite than one that describes the same service in a vague paragraph.

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