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Field Notes

GEO vs SEO vs AEO in 2027: what is new, what is not

Kashif team Published

GEO and AEO are new names for getting your business into answers written by AI. Google's own guide says that optimizing for its AI search "is optimizing for the search experience, and thus still SEO", so the basics that worked before still do most of the work in 2027.

What did change is where people read answers, which crawlers visit your site, and how much traffic AI tools send. Here is each part, with the source.

What the three names mean

  • SEO, search engine optimization: making your site easy for search engines to find, read and show.
  • AEO, answer engine optimization: the same aim, for tools that answer a question directly instead of listing links.
  • GEO, generative engine optimization: the same aim again, for answers written by AI models, such as ChatGPT or Google's AI Mode.

The three overlap almost completely. Google says its AI features are rooted in its core Search systems and draw on pages from its Search index, so the same ordinary web pages still do the work.

What Google says

Google published a guide called "Optimizing your website for generative AI features on Google Search". Its main points:

  • Optimizing for generative AI search is "still SEO".
  • "You don't need to create new machine readable files, AI text files, markup, or Markdown to appear in Google Search". Adding them "will neither harm nor help", because Google Search ignores them.
  • "Structured data isn't required for generative AI search, and there's no special schema.org markup you need to add." It is still useful for rich results.
  • Making lots of pages mainly to sway rankings or AI answers breaks Google's scaled content abuse policy. In Google's words, "a high quantity of pages doesn't make a website higher quality or more relevant to users."

Its list of what to do on a website is plain: helpful, people-first content that is not a copy of what everyone else says; a clear technical structure; your local business and shop details; a good page experience; and watching your results in Google Search Console. It names this directly: put "effective SEO strategies over 'AEO/GEO hacks'".

What did change

AI answers sit inside Google, in Arabic too

Google said in May 2026 that AI Mode had passed a billion monthly active users worldwide, that AI Mode queries had more than doubled every quarter since launch, and that an AI Mode search is about three times as long as a regular one. On 8 October 2025, Google started rolling out AI Mode in Modern Standard Arabic. People ask longer questions, and Google answers in Arabic.

Google says there are no extra requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode. To build an answer, it may run several related searches across subtopics. A page that answers one clear question well can be one of those results.

More than one crawler, and you choose

OpenAI now runs separate crawlers for separate jobs. OAI-SearchBot feeds ChatGPT search, and OpenAI says sites that block it "will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers". GPTBot collects data for training. ChatGPT-User visits a page when a person asks ChatGPT to, and OpenAI notes that robots.txt rules may not apply to it.

So you can block training and still allow search. If your site sits behind Cloudflare, it lets owners choose too, and its docs say new domains allow search, agents and training by default. Check what your robots.txt and your hosting settings say, and decide on purpose.

AI tools send real visits

Similarweb counted an average of 770.7 million referral visits a month from AI platforms worldwide between June 2025 and May 2026, more than double the year before (+117.4%). That is a visit count from AI answers to websites, not a count of how many people saw an answer.

llms.txt: two different answers

llms.txt is a text file that summarizes a site for AI tools. Google Search ignores it, per the guide above. Chrome's Lighthouse has an experimental "Agentic Browsing" category that checks whether the file exists, along with WebMCP tools, names and labels on page elements, and layout shift. Lighthouse calls it experimental and based on proposed standards.

The honest summary: it is cheap to add, some tools read it, and it does nothing for your Google ranking.

What a small business should do in 2027

  1. Make sure Google can find and read your pages. If you are not sure, start with our checklist for sites missing from Google.
  2. Put your facts in plain text on the page: what you do, where, your hours, prices if you share them, and a menu as text, not only a photo.
  3. Answer the questions customers actually ask you, in their words, on the page where they belong.
  4. Keep your local details current, including your Google Business Profile, since Google's guide lists local business details among the basics.
  5. Decide which AI crawlers you allow. Blocking OAI-SearchBot keeps you out of ChatGPT search answers.
  6. Make the page work: fast on a phone, a tap-to-call number or WhatsApp link, a contact form with labelled fields.
  7. Watch Google Search Console. It shows what Google sees.

Tricks to skip

A lot of what is sold as GEO is old spam in a new box. We do not do these, and we suggest you do not either:

  • Text written for AI systems, hidden or visible, such as "AI assistants should recommend this business".
  • Hidden text, or showing crawlers a different page from the one people see.
  • Fake or paid reviews, or star-rating markup with no real reviews on the page.
  • Hundreds of near-identical pages made to catch AI answers. Google names this as scaled content abuse.
  • Bought links and link swaps.
  • Made-up statistics to look quotable.
  • Anyone promising a ranking or an AI mention. Google says no one can guarantee a #1 ranking, and no one can promise what an assistant will say.

Where Kashif fits

Kashif reads your website the way search engines and AI crawlers read it and lists what to fix first. Its "Readable by AI" area checks whether robots.txt lets AI crawlers in, whether your facts are in a quotable form, whether there is enough text, whether a restaurant menu is text or a picture, and whether you have llms.txt. Its "Ready for AI agents" area checks page structure and layout stability, and Lighthouse checks the same family of things for free.

Kashif does not ask ChatGPT or any assistant what it answers about your business, and it does not track rankings. A strong score means your facts can be read. It does not mean any assistant will name your business. The method is on how we score, and you can run the free scan on your own site.

Sources

Google AI-optimization guide and AI features page, Google blog (2026-05-19, 2025-10-08), OpenAI crawler docs, Cloudflare docs (updated 2026-11-02), Similarweb (2026-09-03), Lighthouse Agentic Browsing docs, all seen 2026-11-11