AEO (Answer Engine Optimization)
Also known as: Answer Engine Optimization
Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) is the practice of structuring content so search engines and AI assistants can lift a direct, self-contained answer out of it — for featured snippets, voice assistants, and AI Overviews — rather than just ranking a blue link.
Traditional SEO optimizes to rank a page; AEO optimizes to be the answer. That means writing content in clearly bounded, quotable units — a one- or two-sentence direct definition up top, explicit question-and-answer pairs, and FAQPage/HowTo structured data — so an answer engine can extract a correct, standalone answer without needing to interpret the whole page.
AEO predates the current wave of generative AI (it grew out of optimizing for Google's featured snippets and voice search), but it's the direct foundation for GEO. A page that's well-structured for a one-sentence extracted answer is also well-structured for an LLM to summarize and cite correctly.