AEO vs SEO: what changes and what doesn't

Two disciplines, one goal

SEO aims to rank a page in a list of search results so that a person clicks it. AEO aims to have a business named, correctly described and, ideally, cited inside an answer that the person may read without clicking anything. The goal is the same, being chosen, but the unit of success differs: a position on a results page versus a place in a written answer.

What stays the same

• Crawlability and indexing. AI platforms that search the web depend on search indexes and crawlers. A page that search engines cannot find or read is unlikely to reach an AI answer either.
• Helpful, specific content. Pages that answer real questions clearly are the raw material of both good rankings and good answers.
• Authority and reputation. Links, press coverage, reviews and a consistent presence across the web signal that a business is real and credible, to search engines and AI platforms alike.
• Technical basics. Fast pages, clean HTML, sensible URLs, structured data (Schema) that matches the visible text, and hreflang when you publish in more than one language.
• Local SEO. For local businesses, accurate map listings and directory entries matter for both, and the platforms built on Google’s systems, Gemini and Google AI Mode, can draw on the same local data.

If your SEO is weak, fix it first. Most AEO work sits on top of it.

What changes

• The answer replaces the list. A results page shows ten or more options. An AI answer usually names only a handful, and the customer may never see the rest. Being just outside the answer is close to being absent.
• Mentions count without links. A business can be recommended by name with no link to its site. That mention has value even though no analytics tool records a visit.
• Other people’s pages carry more weight. Because assistants assemble answers from several sources, directories, reviews, news articles and roundups can decide whether you are named. AEO spends more of its effort outside your own site than on-page SEO does.
• Description, not just position. An answer describes you: affordable or premium, reliable or risky, best for families or for business travellers. How you are framed can matter as much as whether you appear.
• Five platforms, not one. AI answers come from several platforms that work differently. A business can do well on one and be missing on another for the same question.
• Language and location split the picture further. The same question can get different answers in English and in Spanish, and in Chicago and in Houston.
• The questions are longer. People ask AI platforms full questions with context, such as “a quiet café in Jeddah with good wifi to work from”, not two-word keywords. Content has to address the situation, not just the term.

What changes in measurement

SEO has mature measurement: rankings, impressions and clicks in Search Console, traffic in analytics. AEO has much less. AI platforms do not publish impression data for the businesses named in their answers, and Google has said that traffic from AI Mode is counted inside Search Console’s overall web search figures rather than reported separately. Visits that come from AI answers can appear in analytics as referrals from the platforms, but a mention that leads to a phone call or a walk-in leaves no trace at all.

So AEO measurement starts from the answers themselves: ask the questions customers ask, repeatedly, and record who is named. Measuring AI visibility explains the metrics and their limits.

How to divide the work

For most businesses, the practical split looks like this:

• Keep doing: technical SEO, useful content, local listings, links and reviews.
• Add: a list of the questions customers ask AI platforms, in each language and city you serve; regular measurement of who is named; work on the third-party sources those answers cite; pages that answer comparison and “how to choose” questions; and a check that AI crawlers are allowed to read your site.
• Stop: writing thin pages for keyword variations nobody asks, and treating a first-page ranking as proof that customers can find you in AI answers.

In a small team the same person often does both. The difference is less about skills than about where you look: SEO looks at your pages and your rankings; AEO also looks at the answers, and at everyone else’s pages that feed them.

Claims to be careful with

• “AEO replaces SEO.” It does not. Answers built from search depend on search systems.
• “One file gets you into ChatGPT.” Files such as llms.txt are a proposal some sites adopt. No major platform has documented that such a file decides which businesses it recommends. Clear, readable pages matter more.
• “You can pay to be recommended.” Where a platform offers paid placements, they are labelled as ads. Nobody can sell you a guaranteed place in the organic answer itself.
• “Rank one on Google and you will be in the AI answer.” Good rankings help, especially on the platforms built on Google, but they do not guarantee a mention. The answer draws on many pages, not only the top result.

How Pharos helps

Pharos covers the part of the work that SEO tools do not. It asks your customers’ questions on ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude and Google AI Mode, records whether and how you are named, which competitors appear instead and which sources are cited, and turns the gaps into a list of recommendations. It sits alongside your SEO tools rather than replacing them, and connects to Google Analytics and Google Search Console so that both views stay side by side.