AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) is the practice of optimizing a site to be read, understood and cited by AI answer engines — ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude — instead of (only) indexed by Google.
Why SEO alone isn't enough anymore
Traditional SEO optimizes for ranking in a results page the user scrolls and clicks through. AI answer engines work differently: they read multiple sources, synthesize a direct answer, and (sometimes) cite 2-3 domains. If your site isn't among the ones read or understood well, you simply don't exist in the answer — no matter how high you rank on Google.
What an answer engine actually evaluates
- Accessibility: can AI bots (GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot...) read your site, or are you blocking them without knowing it in robots.txt?
- Structure: does the content answer the question in the first 100 characters, or does it take three intro paragraphs?
- Structured data: schema.org (Organization, FAQPage, HowTo...) helps an LLM understand "who you are" without inferring it from free text.
- llms.txt: a machine-readable summary of your site, built specifically for AI assistants.
- Freshness and consistency: up-to-date content that's consistent across pages (brand name, address, data) matters more than ever.
Where to start
The fastest way to see where you stand today is a scan: analyze your site for free and get a 0-100 score with the exact list of what's missing, section by section.