GEO vs SEO, AEO and LLMO: what the acronyms mean for a local business
GEO is the only newer acronym here with a research paper behind it. For a local business, most of the work is still SEO, although the way you measure it has changed.
Lachlan Fea 7 min read
In this article6 sections
GEO, AEO and LLMO all describe the same work as SEO. Google's guide to optimizing for generative AI features settles it: "From Google Search's perspective, optimizing for generative AI search is optimizing for the search experience, and thus still SEO." The inputs have not changed. The measurement has.
Proposals often frame GEO and SEO as separate disciplines. They are not. If you run a business with an address, this is the vocabulary page for how AI search decides which local businesses get named: what each letter stands for, where it came from, and which parts of the pitch were invented.
What each acronym stands for
| Acronym | Stands for | Where it came from | What it asks you to do differently |
|---|---|---|---|
| SEO | Search engine optimisation | The original term. Everything below is defined against it | The baseline |
| GEO | Generative engine optimization | A 2023 research paper, accepted at the KDD 2024 conference | Cite sources, add statistics, quote named people |
| AEO | Answer engine optimization | Popularised by marketers. No primary source claims the coinage | Answer the question directly, near the top |
| LLMO | Large language model optimization | Popularised by marketers, later than the other two | Nothing AEO does not already ask |
GEO is the one with a paper behind it
GEO: Generative Engine Optimization, submitted in November 2023 by researchers at Princeton University and IIT Delhi and accepted at KDD 2024, is where the term starts. Its own sentence: "we introduce Generative Engine Optimization (GEO), the first novel paradigm to aid content creators in improving their content visibility in generative engine responses". The paper reports that GEO "can boost visibility by up to 40% in generative engine responses".
That 40% is the figure the whole category quotes, so it is worth knowing what produced it. The winning tactics were citing sources, adding statistics, quoting people with names and titles, and writing more clearly. The tactic that lost ground was keyword stuffing. None of that is new advice, and none of it needs a new discipline to deliver it.
The paper is also more careful than its resellers. The same abstract says "the efficacy of these strategies varies across domains, underscoring the need for domain-specific optimization methods", and the GEO-bench benchmark it was measured on is "diverse user queries across multiple domains", not a test of which physio an assistant names in one suburb. The research is real. The retainer built on top of it is a different object.
AEO and LLMO have no origin story
AEO expands to "answer engine optimization" and LLMO to "large language model optimization". Google's guide gives the AEO expansion in the same breath as GEO's, which is close to the only authoritative definition either term has. Neither has a paper, a standards body or a documented first use.
Search "what is AEO" today and page one is a Reddit thread, a course seller and a run of software companies, several of them selling an AEO subscription underneath the definition. The term is defined mainly by people with a tool to sell, and in ordinary use it means "write things an assistant can lift".
If you have been sold both AEO and LLMO, you have been sold the same thing twice.
GEO vs SEO: what differs for a local business
Very little, and Google is blunt about the part it controls. Its AI features guide says: "There are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, nor other special optimizations necessary."
The inputs to a local AI answer were already on your list. A Google Business Profile that is finished rather than started. A review count and rating that keep moving, because Google's local ranking guidance says plainly that "More reviews and positive ratings can help your business's local ranking". Review text that describes the job instead of saying "highly recommend". The same phone number and hours on every site that lists you. Pages elsewhere that mention you. A website the crawlers can reach. The parent piece sources each one and gives the order to work in.
One honest complication: ChatGPT and Perplexity do not run on Google's index, so Google's "no additional requirements" line does not cover them. The work list barely moves anyway. Those two assemble a local answer out of the public pages their crawlers can reach, which means directories, roundups, review sites, and your profile before your homepage. Being present and correct on the pages that already rank for your category is what local SEO has meant for a decade. Does ChatGPT recommend businesses like yours walks that half of it end to end.
What is different: the measurement
A search ranking is a position you can look up, and it holds still long enough to be checked. An AI answer is generated fresh every time it is asked, so being named once is a sample rather than a place you hold.
Reporting is split as well. Google gives you a first-party number for its own surfaces: Search Console's Generative AI performance report counts impressions in AI Overviews and AI Mode, and Google rolled it out "to all websites worldwide" on 31 August 2026. Nothing any other assistant does appears in it, so ChatGPT, the Gemini app and Perplexity end up measured with a log or a subscription rather than a dashboard you already own. AI visibility explained covers how those scores get built and why two tools handed the same business return two different numbers.
When a proposal offers GEO on top of SEO, the new line item is almost always measurement, not method.
The parts that were invented
Google's guide ends on a bullet that could stand as this section's heading: "Prioritize effective SEO strategies over 'AEO/GEO hacks'." Five claims recur in proposals.
Proprietary scores. Every AI visibility score is a count of how many sampled answers named you, divided by how many were sampled, and the vendor picks the denominator: their prompt list, their assistants, their sample size. Change any of the three and the score moves with nothing changed about your business. It carries a direction for one business over several months, with the questions held identical. It does not carry a level, because nobody has set an industry benchmark to compare it against. Google's warning applies to every vendor here, us included: "Be wary of third-party tools that promise ranking success or claim to use 'internal' Google metrics. No third-party tool has access to our internal ranking or AI systems." AI search visibility tools goes through what a tracker can and cannot tell you.
The GEO agency. There is no separate discipline to staff. Google sends the question back to ordinary due diligence: "If you're considering third-party 'AEO' or 'GEO' advice or services, review our guidance on evaluating third-party SEO advice." Ask for the deliverables list before you sign, then count the line items an ordinary SEO would have done in 2019: fix the profile, fix the citations, get the site crawlable, publish pages that answer real questions. If that is all of them, you are buying SEO with a newer invoice.
Guaranteed mentions. Nobody can sell you one. Google's local ranking page says "There's no way to request or pay for a better local ranking on Google", and OpenAI's help centre says ChatGPT "ranks search results using multiple factors intended to help users find relevant, reliable information. Placement is not guaranteed."
The file and markup upsell. Google's guide names these one at a time. On llms.txt and its relatives: "You don't need to create new machine readable files, AI text files, markup, or Markdown to appear in Google Search (including its generative AI capabilities), as Google Search itself doesn't use them." Keep one if you like the tidiness. Google says it ignores them. On style: "You don't need to write in a specific way just for generative AI search." On link building rebranded: "seeking inauthentic 'mentions' across the web isn't as helpful as it might seem."
Keyword templates and rating steps. This one does damage. A request that asks the customer to work in a phrase, and any rating question standing in front of the review sites, both run into Google's prohibited and restricted content policy, which stops merchants soliciting reviews that include specific content or selectively soliciting positive ones. They also spoil the one asset an assistant reads as evidence about you. Review gating is the longer version.
What to do instead
- Finish the Google Business Profile. Primary category, hours, every remaining field.
- Check the crawlers can reach you, including any blanket AI bot blocks left over from 2023.
- Ask every customer for a review, promptly and continuously, so the text describes specific jobs rather than general praise.
- Fix the two or three directory listings carrying an old phone number.
- Ask the assistants the same eight questions on the same day each month and write down what came back. Read the series, not the run.
Cloutly's AI search visibility does step five for you: it asks ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity discovery questions such as "best {category} in {locality}" once a month and records whether each location was named and which rivals were. Read it as a point-in-time sample of a system that is not deterministic, never as a rank.
Frequently asked questions
Is GEO the same as SEO?
For Google's surfaces, yes, and Google says so in its own documentation: optimising for generative AI search is optimising for the search experience, and thus still SEO. For ChatGPT and Perplexity there is no equivalent statement, but the inputs are the same public pages and profiles, so the work list is the same work list.
What is AEO?
Answer engine optimization: writing so that a system generating an answer can find the answer in your page and repeat it accurately. There is no published origin for the term and no body that defines it. Google's guide gives the expansion and then puts it in the SEO bucket alongside GEO.
What does generative engine optimization mean?
It means improving how often a generative engine, meaning any system that answers a query with composed text rather than a list of links, names or cites you. The term comes from a 2023 paper accepted at KDD 2024, whose tested tactics were citing sources, adding statistics and quoting named experts.
Do I need a GEO agency?
Not as a separate line item. If the deliverables are profile hygiene, citations, crawlability and useful pages, that is SEO under a newer name. What you might reasonably buy is the measurement, since the non-Google assistants publish no first-party report.
Is LLMO different from AEO?
Not in practice. Large language model optimization and answer engine optimization describe the same work in different letters, and neither has a definition anybody can point to. Treat both as vocabulary rather than method, and ask what is on the work list.