What AEO and GEO are, and how they differ from SEO

• 81%of the pages AI Overviews cite already rank in Google's top 10
• 92.4%of trackable AI referral traffic comes from ChatGPT (July 2026)
• 6/199AI answers about Thai web design that named a business (our data)
• 0.664how closely mentions on other sites track AI visibility

What is AEO?

AEO (answer engine optimization) means shaping a page so a search engine or AI assistant can lift an answer from it and show it straight away: the AI Overview at the top of Google, a featured snippet or a voice assistant reply. The aim is for a sentence on your page to become the answer people see before any link.

In practice AEO is a question as the heading, the answer in the first sentence, then the detail. Google says there is no special way to write for AI, but a page has to be indexed and eligible to show with a snippet before it can appear as a link in an AI Overview.

AEO also means something else in Thailand

If you were looking for customs, AEO there means Authorized Economic Operator, the Thai Customs Department's certification for trusted traders; see Thai Customs' AEO site (opens in a new tab). This article covers AEO in search only.

What is GEO?

GEO (generative engine optimization) means making your brand and pages the sources an AI tool cites or recommends when it writes an answer itself: ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, Copilot and Google AI Mode. A generated answer does not list ten links; it names a handful of sources, so the goal is to be one of them.

The tool that sends the most visitors today is ChatGPT: GA4 data from 166 websites puts it at 92.4% of trackable AI referral traffic (July 2026). So GEO starts with the question of where ChatGPT looks for its information.

How do AEO and GEO differ?

AEO aims at the answer slots inside search results; GEO aims at mentions inside answers an AI writes. Both lean on SEO because the AI searches before it answers, and a page it cannot find cannot be picked. The table compares SEO, AEO and GEO point by point.

The layers depend on each other because an AI does not know your site by itself. It has to find it in a search first.

How do AI tools choose which sites to cite?

Most AI assistants search before they answer: they send queries into a web index, read a few of the pages they find and write the answer from those. So the index matters. ChatGPT search and Microsoft Copilot use Bing's index; AI Overviews, AI Mode and Gemini use Google's. A page in neither index cannot be cited.

That makes SEO the ticket in: about 81% of the pages AI Overviews cite are already in Google's top 10. AI Mode uses what Google calls query fan-out, splitting one question into many smaller searches, so a page that answers the follow-up questions too has more ways to be picked.

Most Thai businesses ignore Bing, even though ChatGPT search runs on its index. The first step you can take today is to verify your site in Bing Webmaster Tools (opens in a new tab) and send new pages through IndexNow (opens in a new tab) every time the site changes. And if a rebuild is coming, keep the URLs that rank: a page that drops out of the index through a bad redirect drops out of AI answers too. Our guide to redesigning a website with the least risk to its rankings covers how.

What we found in AI answers about web design in Thailand

On 10 October 2026 we pulled 199 questions people put to ChatGPT and Gemini about web design and SEO services in Thailand (English questions with Thai search terms in them, such as รับทำเว็บไซต์). Only 6 answers named a business, about 3%. ChatGPT named the same few agencies and website builders again and again; Gemini pointed to tools and directories such as Clutch and Sortlist instead. None of the answers mentioned TopWebAsia.

In a market this new, the few businesses AI names are the ones talked about on other sites, listed in directories AI trusts and described the same way everywhere. Ahrefs found across 75,000 brands that mentions on other sites correlate with AI visibility at 0.664, against 0.218 for backlinks.

How do you measure AEO and GEO?

Measure in four layers, in order: do AI bots read your site, does AI use your content in answers, does it name your brand, and do those answers send visitors. Each layer has a free tool, and if the first layer fails, nothing above it can happen.

Use the same questions every month, because AI answers change daily. A study of more than 70,000 answers found only about 25% of the pages ChatGPT cites one day are cited again the next (September 2026). A single check proves nothing; the monthly trend does.

GA4 needs no setup: Google added an AI Assistant channel on 13 May 2026. In Search Console, impressions from AI Overviews and AI Mode are counted in the normal Performance report.

Where should you start with AEO and GEO?

Start with the work that also helps ordinary SEO: be findable in both indexes, answer clearly and give AI facts it can trust. These are the seven steps we take on every site, in order.

1. Let the bots in. Check robots.txt allows Googlebot, Bingbot, OAI-SearchBot, ChatGPT-User, PerplexityBot and Claude's bots. On Cloudflare, switch off AI training only, not all AI bots: since 15 September 2026 the block setting also stops Google and Bing.
2. Put key facts in the page as text. Prices, services, areas and opening hours belong in the HTML, not only in images or loaded by JavaScript, because most AI crawlers read only the first HTML they receive.
3. Answer in the first sentence. A question as the heading, the answer straight away, then the detail; a table wherever readers compare; an FAQ section. Pages with FAQs, tables and structured data are cited 52% more often.
4. Add what only you have. Your real prices, your numbers, photos of real work and what you learned on real jobs. An AI has no reason to cite a page that says what every other page says.
5. Verify the site with both Google and Bing. Use Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools, and send new pages through IndexNow.
6. Make your business facts match everywhere. Name, address, phone and services must read the same on the website, Google Business Profile, Facebook, LINE OA and every directory.
7. Get other people talking about you. Directory listings, honest answers on Pantip, mentions from media and partner sites, and never paid fake reviews.

Along the way you will hear advice that sounds right and does nothing. Here is what to skip.

What doesn't work?

• An llms.txt file as a ranking trick. Google said in June 2026 that it ignores llms.txt, and when Ahrefs checked 137,000 domains in May 2026, 97% of these files had received no requests at all. Having one does no harm, but it does not move anything.
• Expecting FAQ rich results. Google retired the FAQ rich result in May 2026. Keep FAQ sections and FAQ markup anyway, because AI tools still read them.
• Writing for robots. Google says plainly that no special files or markup are needed for AI. A page written clearly for people, with clear headings and direct answers, is the easiest page for an AI to use.
• Anyone who promises ChatGPT will name you. AI answers change daily and nobody controls them. What can be promised is the work done and honest measurement.

How do we handle AEO and GEO for clients?

We treat AEO and GEO as part of SEO work, not as a separate product. Every month we check that AI bots can read the site, rework key pages to answer in the first sentence with tables and FAQs, submit new pages to Google and Bing, keep business facts consistent everywhere, and run the same questions in Thai and English in ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and Google AI Mode, with the results in the monthly report.