Search and AI visibility · SEO, AEO and GEO

Make the business easier to find, understand and recommend

One practice area, three disciplines. SEO helps search engines rank the site. AEO helps answer systems extract and attribute direct answers. GEO helps generative assistants describe and recommend the business accurately.

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Customers increasingly ask ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Copilot, Perplexity and Google AI experiences for a direct answer. Those systems assemble an answer from pages, profiles, structured data and other sources they can access and trust. At the same time, classic search rankings still drive most discovery traffic.

The work improves all three surfaces together, because they share the same foundations: clear entity signals, consistent descriptions, crawlable pages, structured data and content that actually answers buyer questions. None of it creates a guaranteed position or citation, because engines and assistants change their sources continuously.

The sequence

How the work moves

01

Observe

Record current rankings and how major assistants currently describe the business and its category.
02

Clarify

Align the organisation, services, location, audience and controlled identity references.
03

Structure

Add direct answer passages, internal links and appropriate machine-readable data.
04

Re-check

Repeat the queries, record changes and identify remaining source gaps.

SEO, AEO and GEO side by side

Three overlapping disciplines, one shared foundation. Most SMEs need a sensible blend rather than a separate project for each.

	SEO	AEO	GEO
Stands for	Search Engine Optimisation	Answer Engine Optimisation	Generative Engine Optimisation
Optimises for	Ranking pages in search results on Google and Bing	Being the extracted direct answer: featured snippets, voice answers and AI answer boxes	Being accurately described and cited when an AI assistant chooses to use the business as a source
The buyer is doing	Scanning a results page and choosing a link	Asking a specific question and reading one answer	Asking an assistant for a recommendation or comparison
Core work	Technical health, keywords, content quality, links and local signals	Question-shaped content, direct answer passages and carefully matched structured data	Entity clarity, consistent descriptions across sources, evidence assistants can cite
Measured by	Rankings, impressions, clicks and organic conversions	Answer inclusion and accuracy for a tracked question set	How assistants describe and recommend the business across repeated baseline checks

What changes on the site

Entity clarity

One consistent explanation of who Astraeus is, where it works and what it provides.

Answer passages

Self-contained paragraphs that answer specific buyer questions without relying on surrounding marketing copy.

Structured data

Organisation, service, breadcrumb and FAQ schema that matches the visible page.

Internal evidence paths

Links connecting service claims to detailed pages, FAQs, Insights and controlled proof.

Source consistency

Alignment across the website and controlled business profiles, with conflicts recorded for correction.

Crawl access

Sitemaps, canonicals, robots directives and content surfaces checked for accidental blockers.

What Astraeus does not promise

Guaranteed citations

No provider controls which source an assistant chooses for a particular answer.

A fixed ranking

Answer systems do not expose one stable list equivalent to a traditional results page.

Schema as a shortcut

Machine-readable data helps interpretation but cannot compensate for weak or unsupported content.

Instant change

Assistants refresh sources on different schedules and may take time to reflect an update.

The honest boundary

AEO and GEO are young disciplines. We can improve clarity, consistency, crawlability and the evidence available to search engines and answer systems. We cannot guarantee a ranking, and we cannot guarantee that a named assistant will cite or recommend a business for a specific prompt.

Direct answers

Common questions

How is AEO different from SEO?

SEO helps pages qualify and rank for searches. AEO also focuses on whether an answer system can identify the business, extract a direct answer and trace the claim to a clear source.

What is GEO, and how is it different from AEO?

GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation) is about how generative assistants such as ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity describe and recommend a business inside a generated response. AEO focuses on extractable direct answers; GEO focuses on being an accurate, citable source when the assistant composes its own answer. In practice the two share most of their groundwork.

Which assistants does the work cover?

The assessment can sample ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Copilot, Perplexity and Google AI experiences. Availability and output vary by account, location and date.

Will FAQ schema make us appear in AI answers?

No. It can help machines interpret a question and answer, but it does not cause an answer to be selected. The visible content still needs to be accurate, useful and supported.

Do we need an llms.txt file?

Not as an SEO shortcut. Google says it does not use llms.txt for Search ranking or AI features. It can be a small optional index for assistants that choose to read it, but good pages, crawl access and consistent business information matter more.

Can you guarantee a recommendation?

No. Any provider making that promise is claiming control over systems they do not operate.

Does this replace ordinary SEO?

No. Crawlability, good pages, local signals, relevant links and technical health remain part of the foundation.

How is progress measured?

A baseline set of representative questions is recorded, then re-run after changes. The report tracks accuracy, inclusion, cited sources and unresolved inconsistencies.

See how you show up today.

Send the business name, location and the questions customers are likely to ask. We will define a useful baseline check across search and AI assistants.