What is answer engine optimization (AEO)?

By the Variask team · Updated

Definition

Answer engine optimization (AEO) is the practice of getting your brand chosen as the answer by answer engines: AI assistants, AI search features and voice assistants that reply directly instead of showing a list of links.

Also called AEO

With Variask: Variask tracks your answers across 9 AI engines and tells you which pages, fixes and sources will win more of them.

What AEO focuses on

  • Direct answers at the top of pages, in plain language.
  • Structured data and clean page structure.
  • Coverage of the full set of buyer questions, including follow ups.
  • Being named and cited by ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity and Google AI.

What it means for brands

  • Think in questions and answers, not keywords and pages.
  • Track results across engines and markets, since each answer engine behaves differently.
Deep dive in Variask UniversityWhat is answer engine optimization (AEO)?

Questions

Answer engine optimization (AEO):
common questions

No. It extends SEO into AI answers. Most AEO work also helps classic search.

Related terms

Keep exploring

Disciplines

Generative engine optimization (GEO)

Generative engine optimization (GEO) is the practice of making your brand and content more likely to be mentioned, cited and recommended in answers written by AI assistants.

Read

Engines and surfaces

Answer engine

An answer engine is a search tool that replies with a direct, written answer instead of a list of links. ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, Copilot and Google AI Overviews all work as answer engines.

Read

Engines and surfaces

Zero-click search

A zero-click search is a search where the person gets what they need on the results page or in the AI answer and does not click through to any website.

Read

Technical

Structured data

Structured data is code added to a page, usually JSON-LD using the Schema.org vocabulary, that describes its content in a machine readable way, such as a product's price, an article's author or a company's logo.

Read
Full glossary