The short answer
SEO (search engine optimization) and AEO (answer engine optimization) share fundamentals but aim at different surfaces. SEO optimizes a page to rank in a list of blue links on Google or Bing, measured by position and clicks. AEO optimizes content to be cited inside a single AI-generated answer from ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, or Google AI Overviews, measured by citation rate and share of model.
The surface is different
SEO competes for a slot in a ranked list. Ten results get a chance at a click, so being on page one has value even at position six. AEO competes to be quoted inside one composed answer. The engine cites only a few sources, so the finish line is being one of those few, not simply ranking somewhere on the page.
The outcome you measure is different
SEO is measured by keyword position, impressions, and organic clicks. AEO is measured by how often an engine mentions or cites you (citation rate), your share of answers versus competitors (share of model), and the sentiment of each mention. The same page can win one metric and lose the other.
What AEO adds on top of SEO
AEO keeps the SEO fundamentals (crawlability, clean structure, authority, backlinks, a healthy Domain Score) and adds three things: access for AI crawlers across the AI user agents, an llms.txt that tells engines what to read, and an answer-first page structure with clean JSON-LD so the answer is easy to extract.
Run both, measure both
Because the same question can appear as a link list and as a composed answer, most teams run SEO and AEO together. See the full AEO vs traditional SEO comparison, or the what is AEO primer. To see where your site stands in AI answers, run the free AI visibility scan.