Answer engine optimization

How does AEO differ from Technical SEO?

Technical SEO earns a place in a list of links. Answer engine optimization earns a place in the answer. AEO is entity extraction and a citation: structured data plus an atomic answer the crawler can lift without the rest of the page.

Ranking a link and ranking a fact

Technical SEO still matters. A page that cannot be fetched cannot be cited. AEO adds a second requirement: once the file is fetched, the fact has to be obvious. The engine is choosing a sentence, not only a URL.

  • SEO gets a URL crawled, indexed, and ranked.
  • AEO gets an entity extracted and a fact cited.
  • Both fail when the answer exists only in the browser.

Answer engine optimization is the engagement for the citation. Technical SEO is the engagement for the fetch.

Related terms

GEO glossary

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