For fifteen years, "getting found online" meant one thing: ranking on Google. In 2026 that is only part of the picture. Buyers now research across Google, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and AI Overviews — often without ever clicking a blue link. To stay visible you need three layers working together: SEO, AEO and GEO.
SEO — ranking on the results page
Search Engine Optimisation is still the foundation. It is the work of ranking your pages in the classic list of results: technical health, crawlability, Core Web Vitals, keyword-mapped content, internal linking and backlinks. If your site is not technically sound and topically authoritative, nothing else works. SEO earns the clicks that still make up the majority of qualified traffic for most businesses.
AEO — winning the answer box
Answer Engine Optimisation is about being the direct answer, not just a result. That means featured snippets, People Also Ask boxes, voice-search responses and on-SERP answers. AEO rewards clear, structured content: concise definitions, well-formatted lists and tables, and FAQ schema that tells search engines exactly what question your page answers. When Google shows an answer without a click, AEO decides whether that answer is yours.
GEO — getting cited by AI engines
Generative Engine Optimisation is the newest layer. When someone asks ChatGPT or Perplexity for "the best SEO agency in India" or "how to fix crawl budget," the model gives an answer and often cites sources. GEO is the practice of becoming one of those cited sources — through entity building, consistent structured data, an llms.txt file, and being referenced on the third-party places AI models trust (Reddit, Quora, industry roundups, Wikipedia, review sites).
How they fit together
These are not either/or choices. SEO builds the authoritative pages. AEO formats those pages so engines can extract clean answers. GEO makes sure AI systems recognise your brand as an entity worth citing. A page optimised for all three ranks on Google, wins the answer box, and gets quoted by AI — from one piece of work.
That is exactly how we build for clients at SERP EDGE. If you want a plan for all three layers, get a free audit or see our services.