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Show me where I stand
AEO hub · Updated October 2026

You rank on page one. ChatGPT still names your competitor.

Show me where I stand → Start with the basics
By Joe Robison, founder of Green Flag Digital

The short answer

Answer engine optimization (AEO) is the practice of making your brand the source an AI system cites or names when it answers a question, across Google AI Overviews and AI Mode, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Copilot. SEO earns a ranking and a click. AEO earns a mention inside the answer.

What buyers search every month
4,400
US searches for “generative engine optimization”
2,400
US searches for “answer engine optimization”
$51.67
average cost per click for “answer engine optimization services”
Buyers say GEO almost twice as often as AEO. Same job. This hub covers both.Clearscope Query Discovery, US, Oct 2026
The 60-second version

Three jobs. Only one of them happens on your site.

01

SEO gets you ranked

Pages, links and technical health earn positions in Google and the clicks that come with them.

02

AEO gets you named

Answer engines summarize the web and name a few brands. AEO shapes whether yours is one of them, and how it’s described.

03

Other people’s words decide it

Most of the citations you’ll earn won’t point at your website. They’ll point at the places that talk about you.3

Read in this order

23 guides, one path from “what is this” to “who do we hire.”

Each guide links to the next question you’ll have. Start on the left.

Learn11

How answer engines work

What AEO is and how AI picks its sources.

  • What is AEO? The full guideLive
  • AEO vs SEOSoon
  • GEO, explainedSoon
  • LLM SEO: how models pick sourcesSoon
  • AI Overviews SEOSoon
  • Query fan-outSoon
  • AI crawlers and robots.txtSoon
  • llms.txt: does it matter?Soon
  • Brand entity SEOSoon
  • Reddit in AI answersSoon
  • Marketing to AI agentsSoon
Evaluate10

How to do it and measure it

Playbooks, tracking and tools.

Hire2

Have it done for you

When you’d rather have a team on it.

Show me where I stand →

Every guide links up to this hub, across to its two closest siblings, and down to the next stage.

Our research

We pulled 5,000 URLs ChatGPT cites. Ranking and citation are decoupled.

The study shows which pages ChatGPT actually names, and why a page-one ranking no longer decides it.1

Read the citation study →
Key takeaway
A page-one ranking does not decide who ChatGPT names. The pages it cites and the pages that rank are increasingly different sets.
From the GFD citation study
Quick answers

What CMOs ask us first

Is AEO the same as GEO?

In practice, yes. Both mean earning citations and mentions inside AI-generated answers. GEO is the label more buyers search for, 4,400 times a month versus 2,400 for AEO, so you’ll see both here.2

Does AEO replace SEO?

No. SEO earns the ranking and the click. AEO adds the mention inside the answer. Our citation study found the two have come apart, so you need both.1

How do I know if AI tools mention my brand?

Ask the engines the questions your buyers ask, record which brands get named and how, then repeat on a schedule. Our tracking-tools guide compares the trackers that automate this.

Where should a B2B team start?

With the questions buyers ask before they talk to sales. Map them, check who gets named today, then close the gaps on your site and in the publications AI tools trust.

Sources
  1. Green Flag Digital, AEO page analysis: what pages get cited by ChatGPT.
  2. Clearscope Query Discovery, US search volume and CPC, pulled October 28, 2026.
  3. Joe Robison, What Is Answer Engine Optimization?, Green Flag Digital, September 2026.
Your next step

Find out if ChatGPT names you or your competitor.

We run the questions your buyers ask through ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Overviews, then show you who gets named and why.

Show me where I stand →
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