Blog · 22 October 2026 · Shane O’Connor
AEO is mostly SEO. The rest decides who gets named.
If your pages are crawlable and carry structured data, you have already built the floor of answer engine optimization. On top of it sits a different game. An AI answer names a few tools, and it builds that answer from whichever pages it found, often written by someone else.
What stays the same
The floor is shared.
- A machine has to reach the page.AI search engines read the web with crawlers, much as Google does.[2][3] A page they cannot reach or read cannot be quoted.
- Structured data still counts.Titles, descriptions and JSON-LD tell any machine what a page is, so keep doing them.
- The answer goes first.That was good SEO advice before AI answers existed, and it still holds.
What is different
Four differences that change the work.
- 1. You win a mention, not a position.A results page lists links and the buyer picks one. An AI answer names a handful of tools, and the buyer may never click anything. Asked “best Postman alternative” twice, Claude named five tools in one answer and six in the other.[1]
- 2. Other people’s pages decide what is said about you.Claude recommended Bruno, Insomnia, Hoppscotch, Thunder Client and ReadyAPI without citing any of their own sites, or Postman’s. Everything it said came from five pages written by others: three by vendors, one of which sells a Postman alternative, a publication and a personal blog.[1] Your site is one input. The comparison posts about your category are the rest.
- 3. There is a second set of crawlers.ChatGPT search reads the web with OAI-SearchBot, and Claude with Claude-SearchBot. Each obeys its own robots.txt rule, separate from the crawlers that collect training data.[2][3] A robots.txt written only with Googlebot in mind, or one that blocks every AI bot, can keep you out of the answers.
- 4. Search Console cannot see it.There is no position to check: the answer is written each time someone asks. Google Search Console does not report ChatGPT or Claude answers at all. The only way to know is to ask your buyers’ questions and record who gets cited.
What to do about it
If you have done technical SEO, most of what is left is writing.
- On your site: state the claim, and where it comes from.An engine can only repeat what a page says. “Faster” gives it nothing to quote. “3x faster on this workload, measured like this” gives it a claim and a source. The same goes for prices, limits and comparisons.
- Off your site: go where the answers come from.Find the pages cited for your category, the comparison posts and the lists, then get onto them, ask for corrections, or write the page that answers the question better.
- Measure it by asking.Keep a list of the questions a buyer asks before choosing a tool in your category. Ask them on a schedule and record which pages each answer cites.
When SEO is enough.
If your buyers do not ask AI which tool to use, or the answers already cite you, keep doing SEO. Check before you spend anything: ask Claude or ChatGPT the three questions a buyer would ask before choosing you, and look at what the answers cite.
Questions
The short answers.
Is AEO just SEO?
Underneath, mostly. Crawlable pages, structured data and clean metadata are the floor for both. The difference is what you win: SEO wins a position in a list of links; answer engine optimization (AEO, also called GEO) wins a mention in an answer that names a few tools, built from whichever pages the engine found, often written by someone else.
Does structured data get me into AI answers?
It helps machines understand your pages, so keep it. It does not decide who gets named. When Claude was asked “best Postman alternative” on 21 October 2026, it recommended five tools without citing any of their own sites. What it said came from comparison pages written by other people.
Should I block AI bots in robots.txt?
Decide per bot. OpenAI and Anthropic each run a search crawler (OAI-SearchBot, Claude-SearchBot) separate from the crawler that collects training data, and each obeys its own robots.txt rule. OpenAI says blocking OAI-SearchBot keeps a site out of ChatGPT search answers; Anthropic says blocking Claude-SearchBot may reduce a site’s visibility in Claude’s search results. You can allow the search crawlers and block training.
Can I do AEO myself?
Yes. Nothing about it is secret. Ask the questions your buyers ask, record which pages get cited, then write the page that answers better and get onto the pages that already win. The hard part is doing it every week and keeping every number on those pages true.
Want the check done for you?
Citeplane audits your pages for how well AI engines can read and quote them, and sends a roadmap that puts the fixes in order. Free, no card.