AEO

Answer Engine Optimization is the practice of structuring content so that AI assistants — ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude — surface your brand accurately and prominently in the answers they generate. Unlike traditional SEO, which optimizes for clicks, AEO optimizes for citations and inclusions in AI-generated responses. As AI search handles more of the discovery layer, being present and accurate in model outputs is becoming as important as ranking on a results page.

This section covers the practical side: how to measure AI citation rates, which platforms to prioritize, how to structure content for retrieval, and the tools emerging to track and improve AI search visibility — from Otterly and Profound to Scrunch and Peec AI. We also cover the mechanics of AEO: what llms.txt actually does, how to track AEO performance, and how brands show up differently on ChatGPT vs. Perplexity.