# SEO vs AEO vs GEO: what changes for an online store > SEO vs AEO and GEO for an online store: what each one wins, what it asks of your product pages, how it's measured, and what Google and Bing say. URL: https://clione.ai/comparisons/geo-aeo-seo/ Lang: en | Criterion | SEO | [AEO](/glossary/aeo/) and [GEO](/glossary/geo/) | | --------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | What you win | A position in a list of links | A place among the sources of an answer[^microsoft-ai-search] | | Who decides whether you're in | The search engine's crawling, index and ranking | The same; then, which passage ends up cited[^google-ai-guide] | | What it asks of your product pages | Indexed, eligible for a snippet, with original content | The same, plus sourced data, clear structure and feeds | | [Structured data](/glossary/structured-data/) | Google recommends it as part of SEO | Google asks for nothing special; Microsoft says it helps AI[^microsoft-ai-search] | | How it's measured | Average position, clicks and impressions[^gsc-performance] | Impressions in Google, citations in Bing, repeated queries[^gsc-genai-report][^bing-ai-performance] | | Where it comes from | Search engines' practice and their guidelines | A 2023 academic paper[^geo-paper] | | The name | One, the usual one | Two acronyms; Google gives them one definition | If you landed here searching GEO vs SEO, you probably have a proposal in front of you with two lines, one for SEO and one for GEO or AEO, or you've read that GEO is the new SEO. Google defines SEO as helping search engines understand your content and helping people find your site and decide whether to visit it.[^google-seo-starter] AEO ([answer engine](/glossary/answer-engine/) optimization) and GEO ([generative engine](/glossary/generative-engine/) optimization) add one question: **which part of your page ends up cited in the answer a generative engine writes**. SEO, AEO and GEO don't compete for the same budget. They stack, and the order matters. ## What each one wins With SEO you win a position. The paper that named GEO puts it this way: in SEO, a website's visibility is measured by its average ranking across a set of queries, and generative engines, which blend several sources into a single answer, need different metrics.[^geo-paper] A generative answer has no third place. It has cited sources, with more or less text, earlier or later. Microsoft describes it from inside the search engine. [AI search](/glossary/ai-search/) still ranks, but **ranking whole pages matters less than which pieces earn a place in the final answer**.[^microsoft-ai-search] Google, for its part, shows links to the sites that support its answers in [AI Overviews](/glossary/ai-overviews/) and [AI Mode](/glossary/google-ai-mode/), and warns that AI Overviews only appear when its systems judge they add something to classic search, so they often don't show at all.[^google-ai-features] For a store, the prize changes shape: from a link the shopper picks out of a list to a mention among the sources of an answer they may not even read to the end. Both can happen to the same [product page](/glossary/product-page/) at once, and it pays to know which one you're looking at. ## GEO vs SEO: getting in and getting cited The two lines you keep hearing are both true. The GEO paper says **traditional SEO methods don't apply directly to generative engines**.[^geo-paper] Google says optimizing for generative AI search is still SEO.[^google-ai-guide] They're talking about different steps. **Getting in is SEO.** Google's AI features rely on [retrieval-augmented generation](/glossary/rag/) (RAG), which Google also calls [grounding](/glossary/grounding/): its core ranking systems retrieve pages from its index, and the answer is built from them.[^google-ai-guide] Even the engine in the academic experiment started there: it built each answer from the top five sources Google returned.[^geo-paper] **Getting cited is where GEO works.** The paper's methods rewrite a source that is already among the retrieved ones so the answer uses more of it. What the authors didn't measure was the effect on rankings: they say they didn't evaluate it and only note that it's less likely to affect them.[^geo-paper] And one SEO habit doesn't survive the experiment: keyword stuffing brought little or no improvement in generative answers.[^geo-paper] The figures for each method are in the glossary's GEO entry. That's why the order isn't a matter of taste: **what isn't retrieved can't be cited**. ## What they ask of your product pages The base is the same for both, and Google spells it out: to appear in its generative AI features, a page has to be indexed and eligible to show a snippet, and the site has to be included in those features in [Search Console](/glossary/google-search-console/).[^google-ai-guide] The same guide asks for content that isn't a commodity, with a viewpoint of its own.[^google-ai-guide] What generative engines add, according to the people who build them: - **Claims backed by data and sources.** Bing recommends supporting what you say with examples, data and cited sources,[^bing-ai-performance] and in the academic experiment the methods that lifted a source's visibility the most were citing sources, adding quotations and adding statistics.[^geo-paper] - **Clear structure.** Bing asks for clear headings, tables and FAQ sections,[^bing-ai-performance] and Microsoft says its assistants can lift a question-and-answer pair word for word.[^microsoft-ai-search] - **Letting each [crawler](/glossary/web-crawler/) in.** OpenAI warns that sites that block [OAI-SearchBot](/glossary/oai-searchbot/) won't appear in ChatGPT's search answers.[^openai-bots] Which crawler each assistant uses, and how to allow it in [`robots.txt`](/glossary/robots-txt/), is covered in the guide to [what AI crawlers see in your store](/guides/what-an-ai-crawler-sees/). - **The catalog as a feed.** Google says [Google Merchant Center](/glossary/google-merchant-center/) feeds can help your products show up both in AI responses and across the rest of Search,[^google-ai-guide] and OpenAI's [ACP](/glossary/acp/) lets ChatGPT receive catalog data that is already structured.[^openai-commerce] They disagree on two points: - **Chunking content.** Google says there's no need to break it into small pieces for AI to understand it.[^google-ai-guide] Microsoft explains that assistants like [Copilot](/glossary/copilot/) break content into smaller pieces, and advises against walls of text.[^microsoft-ai-search] - **FAQs.** Google stopped showing the FAQ rich result on May 7, 2026,[^google-updates] and Bing still recommends FAQs so its AI systems can use your content.[^bing-ai-performance] For a store, one way out works for both: headings that say what's underneath, tables for what gets compared, and real questions with their answers. **Google doesn't require it, and Bing asks for it.** ## Structured data, engine by engine Google doesn't hedge: structured data isn't required for generative AI search, and **there's no special markup from [schema.org](/glossary/schema-org/) to add for its AI**. In the same breath it recommends you keep using it as part of your SEO strategy, because it helps you qualify for [rich results](/glossary/rich-results/).[^google-ai-guide] In its documentation for online stores it adds that this standard, machine-readable format can make Google's understanding of your content more accurate,[^google-ecommerce-sd] and for its AI features it asks that structured data match the visible text on the page.[^google-ai-features] Valid markup doesn't guarantee that match: that's the difference between [validating the markup and verifying what's published](/comparisons/validate-vs-verify/). The others tell it from their side. Microsoft writes that [schema.org markup](/glossary/schema-markup/) helps search engines and AI systems understand your content, turning text into structured data that machines can interpret with confidence.[^microsoft-ai-search] OpenAI receives a store's catalog as structured data, through ACP feeds.[^openai-commerce] Put another way, markup isn't a trick for getting cited. It's the machine-readable version of what your product page already says, and **several engines say they read it**. The `llms.txt` file is a separate discussion, and it has its own comparison: [`llms.txt`, sitemaps and structured data](/comparisons/llms-txt-sitemap-structured-data/). ## How each one is measured SEO is measured in Search Console's Performance report: clicks, impressions, [CTR](/glossary/ctr/) and **average position**, by query, page, country or device.[^gsc-performance] Since June 16, 2026, that report also includes what happens in AI Mode.[^google-updates] For the generative side there are two reports, and **they don't count the same thing: Bing counts citations, Google counts impressions**. - **Google.** Search Console's [generative AI performance report](/glossary/generative-ai-performance-report/) gives your pages' impressions in AI Overviews and AI Mode, grouped by page, country, date and device. Since August 31, 2026, it's available to every site.[^gsc-genai-report] - **Bing.** AI Performance, in [Bing Webmaster Tools](/glossary/bing-webmaster-tools/) since February 10, 2026, counts how often your content is cited as a source in Copilot, in Bing's AI-generated summaries and in some partner integrations, with the cited URLs and the grounding queries that led to them.[^bing-ai-performance] On June 16, 2026 it added search intents (commercial among them), topics and a citation share metric (Citation Share), which Bing describes as an observational metric, not a ranking system.[^bing-ai-insights] For the other assistants there is no report: you run the same query several times, on different days, and note which sources each one cites. How to do that with some method is in the GEO entry. ## AEO vs GEO in AI search The short answer: **for Google they're the same thing**. Its guide defines both terms together, as names for work focused on improving visibility in AI search experiences.[^google-ai-guide] Bing has picked one of the two words: it presents AI Performance as a first step toward GEO tooling.[^bing-ai-performance] Microsoft, on its advertising platform's blog, doesn't commit to either. "Whether you call it GEO, AIO, or SEO," it writes, what matters is still visibility.[^microsoft-ai-search] Other names circulate for similar work too, such as [AI SEO](/glossary/ai-seo/) or [LLMO](/glossary/llmo/). What GEO has of its own is an academic origin, with a benchmark and metrics designed for composed answers.[^geo-paper] For a store, the name changes little: if a proposal treats AEO and GEO as two separate services, ask what each one does that the other doesn't. ## Pick where to start You don't choose between SEO and GEO. You choose the order. - **Start with SEO** if your product pages aren't indexed or can't show a snippet, if crawling is blocked, or if the site isn't included in Search Console's generative AI features. Without that, Google can't show your pages in its AI features.[^google-ai-guide] - **Add the generative layer** once that base holds: search crawlers let in, copy with data and sources, structured data that matches the page, and the catalog in feeds. To check one product page in detail, the guide to [auditing a product page's structured data](/guides/audit-product-page-structured-data/) goes step by step. - **Hire a separate AEO or GEO service only if** it tells you what it does beyond SEO and how it will measure it. Google, in its guidance on third-party advice, mentions tools "promising improvements for AI experiences and search formats (also known as 'AEO' or 'GEO' tools)", reminds you that **it doesn't evaluate third-party services**, and says good advice qualifies its claims as opinion based on data or experience, or backs them up by citing official Google Search guidance.[^google-third-party-seo] To keep going, the [AI search reading path](/learn/ai-search/) puts the terms in this comparison in order, along with the ones behind them.