How to optimize content for featured snippets, voice search, and direct answer formats.
Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) is the practice of optimizing content to appear in direct answer formats — including Google's featured snippets, voice search results, knowledge panels, People Also Ask boxes, and AI-generated answer summaries. AEO focuses on providing clear, concise answers that search engines can extract and display directly to users.
| Aspect | SEO | AEO | GEO |
|---|---|---|---|
| Primary Target | Organic search rankings | Featured snippets & direct answers | AI system citations |
| Content Format | Long-form, comprehensive | Concise, question-focused | Structured, authoritative |
| User Experience | Click to website | Answer shown in search | Answer synthesized by AI |
| Key Platforms | Google, Bing | Google, Alexa, Siri | ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude |
The highlighted box at the top of Google search results that directly answers a query. Types include paragraph snippets, list snippets, table snippets, and video snippets.
Information boxes that appear for entity searches (people, places, organizations). Sourced from Google's Knowledge Graph, Wikipedia, and structured data.
Expandable question boxes that show related queries. Each expanded answer can cite a different source.
The single answer that voice assistants (Google Assistant, Alexa, Siri) read aloud. Usually pulled from featured snippets or top-ranking content.
Google's AI-generated summaries that synthesize information from multiple sources. Represents the convergence of AEO and GEO.
As AI systems increasingly power search results, AEO and GEO are converging. Google AI Overviews use similar principles to traditional featured snippets but with AI synthesis. Content optimized for AEO often performs well for GEO because both reward: