AEO, GEO and SEO: a glossary for service business owners

The short answer

SEO means search engine optimization. AEO means answer engine optimization; GEO means generative engine optimization. Agencies use the latter two labels for work on visibility in AI answers. They are overlapping descriptions, not three separate certifications or guaranteed placement channels. Google treats optimization for its generative search experiences as SEO.

• Google: optimizing for generative AI search

Where the term GEO comes from

The GEO paper accepted at KDD 2024 introduced a framework for studying visibility in generated answers and a 10,000-query benchmark. The authors reported improvements of up to 40% in their evaluated conditions, with results varying by domain.

That figure describes an experimental visibility measure. It is not a forecast of citations, traffic or booked jobs for a business hiring an agency today. We use the research to frame questions worth testing, not to promise the same gain.

• Aggarwal and colleagues: GEO, KDD 2024

Mention, citation and referral

A mention names a business. An explicit citation links to a source used in the answer. A referral is a visit that reaches the website. None of these, on its own, establishes an inquiry or a booked job. These are our reporting definitions; ask any provider how it counts each one.

Illustrative example: an answer names a fictional furnace company but links only to a local directory. That is a business mention and a directory citation. It is not a citation to the company’s website. A citation to the exact directory profile is also different from a link to the directory homepage.

Crawling, indexing and eligibility

Crawling is fetching content. Indexing is processing content for a search index. Eligibility means a page can be considered under a platform’s rules; it does not mean the platform will select it. A successful crawler visit is therefore useful technical evidence, not evidence that a customer saw a recommendation.

Grounding, retrieval and query fan-out

Retrieval fetches information for an answer. Grounding uses outside information to inform the response. Query fan-out expands a question into related searches. A retrieved page and a displayed citation are different observations: our reports count a citation only when the answer supplies an explicit supporting link.

When reviewing a report, ask to see the answer and its citation links, not just a list of URLs returned by a search tool.

• Google: optimizing for generative AI search

Structured data and business identity

Structured data describes information in a machine-readable format. An entity is an identifiable thing, such as a business. Use the correct business name, website and verified details consistently. Markup should describe what visitors can actually find on the page; adding a type or property is not proof of expertise or a citation guarantee.

• Google: AI features and your website

Baseline, follow-up and denominator

A baseline records the starting point. A follow-up repeats the agreed measurement after a documented change. The denominator explains how many answers a count refers to.

Illustrative example: 2 citations in 30 completed answers is a different result from 2 in 3. If only 28 of 30 scheduled attempts are usable, label the batch incomplete rather than quietly changing the denominator or counting errors as absence. Our small pilot withholds incomplete comparisons.

Before buying a report, ask whether the prompts, location, engine settings and repetitions stay fixed, and whether the full answer evidence is included.