AEO vs GEO vs LLMO: The Difference, Honestly
GEO vs SEO: what actually differs
These three terms describe mostly the same work. GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) is the academic term, from a 2024 Princeton and Georgia Tech paper. AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) came from the featured-snippet and voice-search era and broadened. LLMO (Large Language Model Optimization) is a vendor coinage. In practice the tasks overlap by roughly 80%, and the differences rarely change what gets done to a site.
Where each term came from
| Term | Origin | Emphasis |
|---|---|---|
| AEO | Featured snippets and voice search, pre-dates modern AI chat | Direct answers, FAQ structure, snippet capture |
| GEO | Princeton and Georgia Tech, KDD 2024 | Citation inside generated answers, tested empirically |
| LLMO | Vendor and agency coinage, no research base | Model comprehension of the brand entity |
| AI SEO | Industry shorthand | The whole category, loosely |
GEO is the only one of the four with a peer-reviewed paper behind it and a public benchmark, which is why we use it.
What actually differs
The honest split, small as it is:
AEO leans toward the answer format. FAQ blocks, question-shaped headings, 40 to 60 word direct answers, HowTo and FAQPage schema. If a term maps to a concrete deliverable, this is it.
GEO leans toward citation mechanics. Statistics with sources, quotations, authoritative references, and the crawler access question. Everything the Princeton study measured.
LLMO leans toward the entity. Whether a model can resolve your brand to one stable thing: Wikidata identifiers, consistent descriptions, third-party consistency.
In a real engagement you do all three, because a site with perfect FAQ blocks that no crawler can reach scores zero, and a site with a beautiful entity and no extractable passages never gets quoted.
How to tell if you are being sold the same work three times
Ask one question: which specific tasks differ between them?
A provider selling AEO, GEO and LLMO as three products should be able to name deliverables unique to each. If the answer is a restatement of the same schema work, the same FAQ restructuring and the same monitoring under three headings, you are being quoted three times for one job.
Watch for a fourth acronym invented in-house. A private term with no research, no standard and no external definition is a pricing device.
What we do instead
One term, one scope, 83 itemised deliverables across four phases, on How It Works. You can read every line and count them. Whatever you call the category, that list is the work.
Frequently Asked Questions
GEO and AI SEO return the most substantive material. AEO returns more snippet-era content. LLMO returns mostly vendor pages.
No, but its original meaning was narrower. Much of what was called AEO in 2022 was featured-snippet work. The techniques still apply and the target surface has widened.
No. It affects the invoice. Ask for the deliverable list rather than the acronym.
GEO, because it is the term with research behind it. We answer to any of them.