A Glossary of New Search Terms: GEO, AEO, AIO, and Everything Else
Search has acquired a lot of new acronyms. SEO is still very much alive, but the rise of AI-powered search has introduced a new vocabulary, including GEO, AEO, AIO, LLMO and more, often with slightly different definitions depending on who is using them.
The good news is that you don't need to master every acronym to understand what is changing.
At their core, these terms describe a similar shift: people are no longer relying solely on a list of links to find information. They’re asking search engines and AI systems to interpret information, answer questions, compare options, and make recommendations.
The terminology is useful, but the underlying principle is simpler: make your expertise clear enough to be found, understood and trusted.
First, SEO
Search Engine Optimisation.
This one’s likely familiar. SEO is the practice of improving a website so that search engines can understand its content and users can find it through relevant searches.
That includes the technical foundations of a website, but it also encompasses content, structure, internal linking, search intent, authority and the overall usefulness of a page.
SEO isn't going anywhere, but the search experience around it is changing.
AIO: AI Overviews
AI Overviews are Google's AI-generated summaries that can appear at the top of search results, providing an answer to a query alongside links and supporting information. You may already have encountered them without thinking much about the terminology.
Instead of being presented with a page of links and deciding which one to open, you can now receive a generated answer that draws on information from multiple sources.
For businesses, this introduces another question:
Is your information useful enough, clear enough and authoritative enough to be included in the answer?
AEO: Answer Engine Optimisation
Answer Engine Optimisation is focused on making content suitable for systems that provide direct answers to questions. The emphasis is less on ranking for a particular keyword and more on answering the question clearly enough that a search or answer engine can understand and potentially use the information.
This is why things like well-written FAQs, descriptive headings, concise explanations and genuinely useful answers matter. AEO is less about gaming an answer engine and more about making your expertise quotable.
GEO: Generative Engine Optimisation
Generative Engine Optimisation is concerned with visibility within generative AI experiences. Think ChatGPT, Google's AI-powered search experiences and other systems that generate responses rather than simply returning a list of websites.
GEO considers how clearly an organisation's expertise, products, services, location and authority are represented across the web, and how easily that information can be interpreted and referenced by generative systems.
For a hotel, that might mean making it clear not simply that the hotel exists, but what kind of stay it offers, where it is, what surrounds it and why someone might choose it.
For a professional services firm, it might mean clearly establishing its areas of expertise and answering the questions potential clients are already asking.
LLMO: Large Language Model Optimisation
This is where the terminology starts becoming slightly more academic. LLMO generally refers to optimising information for large language models: the systems underpinning tools such as ChatGPT and other generative AI applications.
The distinction from GEO isn't always particularly clear, and the terms are sometimes used interchangeably. You don't need to spend too much time worrying about the difference. The useful question is:
Can an AI system accurately understand what this organisation knows, does and is known for?
Generative search
This one isn't really an optimisation discipline at all. It describes the broader shift towards search experiences where AI generates a response rather than simply presenting links. Instead of:
“Here are 10 websites about boutique hotels in Victoria.”
You might get:
“If you're looking for a boutique hotel within driving distance of Melbourne, these are several options worth considering…”
The search engine has moved from being a directory towards being an intermediary, and that changes what visibility means.
Entity SEO
An entity is essentially a distinct, identifiable thing: a person, organisation, place, product, service or concept. Entity SEO is concerned with helping search engines understand those relationships.
For example, a hotel isn't just a collection of keywords. It is a particular business, in a particular location, offering particular experiences and connected to a particular destination.
The clearer those relationships are across your website and the wider web, the easier it becomes for search systems to understand what you're talking about.
This is particularly important for GEO because AI systems need context, not just keywords.
And then there are citations
In traditional search, the objective has often been the click. In generative search, being mentioned can be valuable even when the user doesn't immediately click through.
AI systems may cite or reference websites when generating an answer, giving businesses another form of visibility. That doesn't mean clicks no longer matter. They absolutely do. It simply means there are now more ways for someone to encounter your brand during the research process.
So which one do you actually need?
Probably not all of them.
This is the part of the conversation that can get unnecessarily complicated.
You don't need one strategy for SEO, another for GEO, another for AEO and another for whatever acronym appears next Tuesday.
The foundations overlap considerably:
Clear information
Useful content
Good site structure
Strong internal linking
Accurate business information
Demonstrable expertise
Relevant third-party mentions
Content that answers real questions
A website that makes sense to both people and machines
That's the work. The acronyms are simply different ways of describing where that work needs to perform.
Not sure what any of this means for your website?
BE SEEN brings SEO, GEO, editorial thinking, and solid data together to help businesses make sense of the changing search landscape, without getting lost in the acronyms. Let's make your business easier to find, understand and recommend.
In conversation
Is GEO replacing SEO?
No. GEO builds on many of the same foundations as SEO, while addressing the way information is surfaced through generative and AI-powered search experiences.
Do I need AEO, GEO and SEO separately?
Not necessarily. There is considerable overlap between these approaches, and a strong search strategy should generally account for traditional and generative discovery together.
What is the most important thing businesses can do for AI search?
Start by making your existing expertise clear. Useful, accurate, well-structured information gives both traditional search engines and AI systems something meaningful to understand.
Does GEO mean creating more content?
Not always. An audit of existing pages, FAQs, service information and editorial content may reveal considerably more opportunity than another round of publishing.
Will these acronyms keep changing?
Almost certainly. The technology is moving quickly, and terminology is still settling. The more useful long-term strategy is to understand how people are searching and make your business genuinely easy to understand.
