AEO vs GEO vs SEO: what does your business need?
A practical way to separate the terminology from the work that helps a buyer find and choose you.Updated 13 September 2026
Read the guideInsights · topic guide
AI search guides: how AI engines choose, cite and recommend
Everything here about being found in ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google's AI features, in the order a B2B team usually needs it: vocabulary, how engines choose sources, then how to check and report where you stand.
Start here
Read these three first if the topic is new to you.
AI search is several related changes rather than one: answer engines that cite sources, assistants that recommend companies by name, and Google results that summarise before anyone clicks. The guides separate those cases, because work that helps with one does not always help with another.
Each guide stands alone, with a self-check or worked example where it helps. With only an hour, the reading order below takes you from the definitions to a first measurement of your own visibility.
- AEO vs GEO vs SEO: what does your business need?The three terms, what each one covers and which applies to your situation.
- How to check whether your business appears in AI answersA repeatable way to see whether AI answers mention you today, before buying any tool.
- How ChatGPT decides which companies to recommend, and what is still unknownWhat is documented about how recommendations are formed, and what remains unknown.
Foundations
The vocabulary and the shape of the work.
Definitions, the difference between the disciplines, and what a credible service is made of.
Generative engine optimisation (GEO): what it is, what the research found and how to do it
What generative engine optimisation is, what the paper that coined the term actually tested and found, how AI engines pick sources, and a six-step B2B method with a readiness check.Published 12 November 2026
Read the guideAnswer engine optimisation (AEO): the B2B guide to being the answer buyers get
What AEO is, how answer engines pick and phrase answers, a five-step method built on buyer questions, how to measure it, and a self-check.Published 12 November 2026
Read the guideLLM SEO: what changes, what does not, and what a site owner can actually control
LLM SEO separated into its two routes, training data and live retrieval: what you can control in each, a prioritised checklist and a self-check.Published 12 November 2026
Read the guideAI search glossary: 39 terms B2B teams need, in plain English
39 AI search terms, from AEO and GEO to GPTBot, query fan-out and zero-click search, each defined in plain English and linked to the guide that covers it.Published 13 November 2026
Read the guideAI SEO services explained: the two meanings, what a credible service includes and what to ignore
AI SEO services mean two things: SEO done with AI tools, and optimisation for AI search. What a credible service includes, what to ignore, and a checker for any proposal.Published 12 November 2026
Read the guideIs SEO dead? What marketers and business owners actually say about AI search in 2026
Is SEO dead? What the 2026 surveys of marketers, executives and buyers say about AI search, grouped into fears, myths and wins with a verdict on each.Published 14 November 2026
Read the guideHow engines choose sources
Where answers come from, and why some companies are named.
Studies of real answers, the off-site sources engines lean on, and the page patterns that get quoted.
How ChatGPT decides which companies to recommend, and what is still unknown
How ChatGPT picks companies to recommend: query rewriting, fan-out searches, the sources it reads and cites, why answers vary, and what is still unknown.Published 7 November 2026
Read the guideWhere AI answers get their sources: 36 answers to 12 B2B buying questions, analysed (November 2026)
Original research: we recorded every source cited in 36 AI answers to 12 B2B buying questions. About 91% were company websites.Published 10 November 2026
Read the guideThe off-site sources AI engines use to recommend B2B companies, and how to earn your place in them
Which off-site sources ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI use to recommend B2B companies: reviews, directories, lists, Reddit, Wikipedia, and an honest plan.Published 7 November 2026
Read the guidePage patterns AI engines quote: how to write passages that get lifted and credited
The page patterns that make a passage easy for AI Overviews, ChatGPT and Perplexity to quote and credit, what Google says, crawler access, and a free checker.Published 7 November 2026
Read the guidePerplexity SEO: how Perplexity finds, ranks and cites B2B sources
How Perplexity crawls, ranks and cites sources, from its own documentation, how it differs from ChatGPT and AI Overviews, and a crawler-access self-check for your robots.txt.Published 12 November 2026
Read the guideWhy your brand is missing from AI shortlists, and what puts it there
How ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google’s AI answers choose which firms to name, and the order of work that gets you named.Updated 6 November 2026
Read the guideGoogle's AI features
AI Overviews, AI Mode and what the click data shows.
What Google documents, how the features differ and what the zero-click numbers mean for B2B traffic.
Google AI Overviews optimisation: what Google documents, what the studies show, and a page-level checklist
What Google documents about AI Overviews and how sources are chosen, what the 2025–2026 citation studies show, a page-level checklist and a self-check.Published 13 November 2026
Read the guideGoogle AI Mode: what it is, how it differs from AI Overviews, and what B2B websites should change
What Google AI Mode is, how it differs from AI Overviews, how to see it in Search Console and what to change on a B2B site.Published 10 November 2026
Read the guideZero-click searches in 2026: what the AI Overviews data actually shows for B2B traffic
What the 2025–2026 studies actually show about zero-click searches and AI Overviews, charted, and what a B2B site should measure instead.Published 10 November 2026
Read the guideCheck, fix and report
Measure your own visibility and explain it to the board.
Manual checks, scores and tools, crawler logs, correcting wrong facts, and turning citations into enquiries.
How to check whether your business appears in AI answers
Build a useful baseline without turning a handful of prompts into an invented market-share score.Updated 13 September 2026
Read the guideAI visibility score: what it measures, how tools calculate it, and how to work out your own
What an AI visibility score measures, how six tools calculate it from their own documentation, why scores differ, and a calculator with the arithmetic shown.Published 12 November 2026
Read the guideAI visibility tools compared: how to evaluate Profound, BrightEdge, Semrush and the rest
AI visibility tools compared from vendors' own pages: Profound, BrightEdge, Semrush, Ahrefs, Peec AI, Otterly and Scrunch, with an evaluation framework.Published 7 November 2026
Read the guideAI crawler log file analysis: how to check which AI bots read your site
How to read your server logs for GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, ClaudeBot and PerplexityBot, verify them by IP, and fix the 403s and 429s that keep them out.Published 12 November 2026
Read the guideChatGPT has the wrong facts about your company? Here is how to trace and fix them
ChatGPT or an AI Overview wrong about your company? Trace each wrong fact to its source, fix it there, use each engine's feedback channel, and re-test.Published 7 November 2026
Read the guideHow to report AI visibility to your board: a one-page scorecard
How to report AI visibility to stakeholders and your board: six measures on one page, where each comes from, how to show uncertainty, plus a scorecard builder.Published 7 November 2026
Read the guideBeing cited by AI is not the same as being chosen
How to turn AI visibility into qualified enquiries by mapping the prompts that precede a sales conversation.Updated 20 September 2026
Read the guideTechnical access, markets and budget
Crawler access, SaaS and UK specifics, and what the work costs.
The files and markup that matter, how the picture differs for SaaS products and UK firms, and how to scope a budget.
llms.txt, schema and AI crawlers: what actually matters for AI search in 2026
Do you need llms.txt? What the AI companies' own docs say about crawlers, robots.txt, JavaScript, schema and IndexNow, with a technical self-check.Published 10 November 2026
Read the guideGEO for B2B SaaS: how to get your product into AI answers, page type by page type
How B2B SaaS products get named in AI answers: the three prompt families, the five page types engines read as sources, a 90-day plan and a self-check.Published 12 November 2026
Read the guideGenerative engine optimisation in the UK: what is different for UK B2B firms
What changes for UK B2B firms: the AI features live in the UK and when they arrived, the UK sources answers lean on, the ICO and CMA rules, and a UK prompt panel builder.Published 13 November 2026
Read the guideHow much does AI search optimisation cost? A buyer’s guide to scope, price and red flags
How much AI search optimisation costs: what drives the price, published 2026 market ranges, audit vs retainer, red flags, and a scorer for comparing proposals.Published 7 November 2026
Read the guideRelated service
When you would rather have this run for you.
The guides above are written so a team can do the work itself. If you would rather have it scoped, run and reported as an engagement, the AI search visibility service page describes what that covers and how progress is measured.
Your next step
Not sure where you stand today?
A free AI visibility report checks a set of buyer questions across the main engines and tells you where your company appears, where competitors do, and which guides above apply to you.