SEO vs AEO vs GEO: What's the Difference? (Plain-English Guide) | WeRepute

Business owners keep saying some version of this to me. "Every agency that calls me now has a new three-letter word. Last year it was SEO, then AEO, now someone's selling me GEO. Is any of this real, or are you all just renaming the same thing?"

Fair question. Partly, yes, we are. But there's also a real change underneath it, and once you see it, the three terms stop being confusing.

Let me explain it with one example the whole way through: a preschool in Gurgaon that wants more admissions.

SEO: when a parent searches and clicks

A mother types "preschool near Sector 56" into Google. She gets a page of results, looks at a few, and clicks on one. SEO is everything that makes your preschool's website one of those results, preferably near the top. A website that loads fast and works on a phone, pages that use the words parents actually type, regular content, and other local websites linking to you.

The win, in this case, is the click. She lands on your site.

AEO: when Google answers before she clicks

Now she searches "what age can a child join preschool". Google shows a little answer box right at the top, a short paragraph that answers the question, with a link underneath. Voice assistants do the same thing, they just read that paragraph out loud.

That paragraph came from someone's website. AEO, answer engine optimisation, is the work of making it come from yours. It's mostly about how you write: answer the question in the first line or two, use headings that match how people ask, add an FAQ section, and give Google some structured data so it understands what's on the page.

The win here is different. She might not even click, but she's seen your school's name as the answer.

GEO: when she asks AI to choose for her

This is the newer one. Instead of searching, she opens ChatGPT or Gemini and writes, "Suggest some good preschools near Sector 56, Gurgaon, with a play-based approach, budget around ₹8,000 a month." The AI writes back a paragraph and names three or four schools.

GEO, generative engine optimisation, is about being one of those names. The tricky part is that AI isn't only reading your website. It's pulling from Google reviews, parenting forums, local listings, news mentions, "best preschools in Gurgaon" articles, all of it. So GEO is really about your reputation across the internet, not just the pages you control.

The win: your school recommended by name, when a parent asks a machine to help her decide.

Putting the three side by side

SEO AEO GEO Where it shows up Google search results Answer boxes, voice search ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, AI Overviews What you get A click to your site Your answer quoted Your brand recommended What drives it Site health, keywords, links Clear Q&A writing, FAQs, structured data Reviews, mentions, consistent facts everywhere Depends on Your website Your website Your website and everything said about you

They aren't three separate things, really. They're layers. SEO is the floor, because AI tools still lean on pages that rank well and read clearly. AEO is SEO written more sharply. GEO is what happens when you take that same effort outside your website.

Which one should you spend on?

It depends on where you are.

If your website is slow, thin or a bit broken, start with SEO and don't let anyone sell you GEO yet. It won't work on a weak foundation. If you already rank reasonably well, AEO is usually the cheapest win available, often just rewriting your key pages around real questions. And if your customers think hard before buying (parents choosing a school, patients choosing a doctor, companies choosing a vendor), GEO is becoming more important every month, because those are exactly the decisions people now talk through with AI.

The one thing I'd push back on is hiring three different people for this. It's the same content, the same reviews and the same reputation feeding all three. Split it up and you end up paying three times for work that should have been one plan.