What is AEO (answer engine optimisation)?

What AEO means

AEO stands for answer engine optimisation. An answer engine is a system that responds to a question with an answer, rather than only a list of links. AEO is the work of helping information be read and presented accurately in those answers.

AEO focuses on the information itself. A good answer is clear, correct and easy to lift out of the page it sits on. That makes AEO as much about accuracy as about being included.

How AEO relates to SEO

SEO, or search engine optimisation, is work that helps a page get crawled, indexed and returned in search results. AEO builds on it rather than replacing it.

Google says the best practices for SEO remain relevant for AI Overviews. It says there are no additional technical requirements and no special schema.org markup to add. For Google, AEO starts with the work SEO already asks for.

Google also says that meeting every requirement does not mean a page will be crawled, indexed or served. Being eligible and being chosen are different things.

What AEO work involves

Most AEO work is careful writing. Start a page with a direct answer to the question it covers. Keep each fact close to the question it answers, so a passage makes sense on its own.

Consistency matters too. Your opening hours, prices, address and services should match across your website and the other places that describe you. Where two pages disagree, an answer may repeat either version.

Access is the last piece. Google lists allowing crawling in robots.txt among the SEO basics that still apply. OpenAI says sites that opt out of OAI-SearchBot, its search crawler, are not shown in ChatGPT search answers, apart from navigational links.

How Carqo relates to AEO

Carqo's content writer is built for the writing side of AEO. You start from one customer question and get a page plan built from fixed rules and the facts you hold. Where a fact is missing, the plan leaves a visible blank.

A clear page is a sound basis for AEO. It does not promise that an AI answer will name or quote your business.

In practice

1. Write a direct answer Put a short, accurate answer near the top of the page that covers each question. Keep the supporting facts, such as prices, places and hours, beside it.
2. Check access and markup Confirm that robots.txt lets search crawlers read the page. Check that any structured data matches the visible text.
3. Record the answers Save what assistants say to the same questions, with the date and the assistant. Compare later answers with that record.

Sources

• Google Search Central, AI features and your website Link checked 29 October 2026
• OpenAI, Overview of OpenAI crawlers Link checked 29 October 2026