Glossary
AEO. Answer Engine Optimization.
Optimizing your content and structured data so AI engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and Gemini cite you accurately when users ask them topical questions.
For 25 years, the goal of online content was to rank in Google. That assumption is breaking. AI engines now answer questions directly. Users get the answer without clicking through. The new game is not ranking. It's being cited.
What this looks like in practice
Keywords and backlinks aren't enough.
Old SEO playbook: cram the page with target keywords, build backlinks, win the SERP. New AEO reality: AI engines build entity graphs from structured data and cite from there. A page with rich schema markup beats a page with great keywords for citation surface. JSON-LD on every public page is the new baseline.
Marketing voice gets summarized away.
"Revolutionizing knowledge management" doesn't survive a Perplexity summary. "A connected brain for your business that updates as your tools change" does. AI engines prefer declarative claims they can quote verbatim over marketing copy they have to paraphrase. The paraphrase usually lands in a competitor's voice.
Engines need to know you're a real entity.
A real company exists on LinkedIn, GitHub, the Chrome Web Store, G2, Capterra, Crunchbase. AI engines cross-reference your identity across these platforms before they trust you enough to cite. If your structured data says "founded 2023" and your G2 says "founded 2025," both get downweighted. Cross-source consistency is the trust signal.
Cited as the source, not summarized away.
AEO is upstream of SEO. The same structured data that helps AI engines cite you also helps Google rank you, but not the other way around. Build for the citation surface first.
Bring your knowledge.Simply ask.
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