AI Search Optimisation

GEO, LLMO, AEO — what's behind the terms

A whole zoo of terms circulates around AI search, often meaning the same thing. A short classification:

• GEO (generative engine optimisation): the umbrella term — preparing content so generative search systems like ChatGPT, Perplexity or Gemini draw on it as a source and cite it
• LLMO (large language model optimisation): practically synonymous with GEO, focused on the language models themselves — how content is captured, understood and reproduced by LLMs
• AEO (answer engine optimisation): optimisation for answer systems like Google AI Overviews — answering the question directly, precisely and quotably

Which term wins out in the end is secondary. What matters is the insight behind it: AI search optimisation doesn't replace classic SEO, it builds on it. Whoever is technically cleanly crawlable and convincing in content holds good cards in both worlds.

How AI search systems pick their sources

ChatGPT, Perplexity and AI Overviews don't invent their answers out of thin air. They rely on content they crawl, understand and consider trustworthy. Clear patterns are emerging about which content gets cited:

• Directly quotable answers: content that answers a concrete question precisely in a few sentences, instead of paraphrasing it across three paragraphs
• A clear structure: clean heading hierarchies, lists and tables from which facts can be extracted by machine
• Structured data: Schema.org markup like FAQ and organisation annotations that classifies content machine-readably
• Verifiable authority: consistent company data, traceable authorship and content with recognisable depth of expertise instead of generic text mass
• Technical reachability: fast load times, no crawler blockades and signals like llms.txt that open up the website's content to AI systems in a structured way

What we concretely do for your AI visibility

We implement AI search optimisation not as a buzzword package but as concrete measures on your website — much of it we already use productively on our own site:

• An AI visibility check: we test whether and how your website appears in ChatGPT, Perplexity and AI Overviews today, and where it's stuck if not
• Content architecture: structuring content so every page answers a clearly delimited question — the foundation of being cited
• Expanding structured data: FAQ, breadcrumb and organisation markup delivering context to search engines and AI systems alike
• Setting up llms.txt: the machine-readable content overview for AI crawlers. We maintain it on aceart.de ourselves and know what matters
• Configuring crawler access: deliberately deciding which AI bots may read your content, instead of accidentally locking them all out
• Monitoring: watching how your mentions in AI answers develop — the market changes fast, we stay on it

The technical foundation for this is the same as in classic SEO: a fast, cleanly structured website. That's why AI optimisation and PageSpeed optimisation go hand in hand with us.

An honest classification instead of gold-rush promises

The market for "AI SEO" is young, and with the novelty come the exaggerations. So we say it clearly: nobody can guarantee that ChatGPT will recommend your company — the systems change continuously, and their source selection can't be fully steered. What can very much be steered: whether your content technically and structurally even has the chance to be cited.

We therefore deliberately approach the topic down to earth: building fundamentals that work in classic search just as they do in AI systems, and keeping our hands off tricks that become worthless at the next model update. What we build today should still carry once the AI landscape has turned over twice.

Related topics

On-page optimisation

Quotable content begins with clean content structures and metadata. More on on-page optimisation.

PageSpeed & Core Web Vitals

Fast, technically clean pages are preferentially captured by AI crawlers. More on PageSpeed optimisation.