AI SEO, GEO and AEO: what is the difference?

What to check first

Use these checks to identify the problem before buying work or changing the setup.

• ✓Which platform and discovery route are in scope
• ✓The actual pages and problems to fix
• ✓How a result will be observed
• ✓What is explicitly not guaranteed

Name the system before the tactic

Google’s AI answers, ChatGPT search and a non-browsing chatbot are not one database. A proposal should state which systems it will check and what it can change. “Optimised for all AI” without a definition is too vague to evaluate.

Ask for deliverables, not just a new vocabulary

A useful plan might fix inaccessible service content, add missing scope information, document project evidence and repair internal links. That is tangible work. Repeating the business name in answers to a hundred tiny prompt variations is not automatically useful content.

Separate access from authority

Allowing retrieval does not make the business the right answer. A technically accessible page can still be vague, unsupported or irrelevant. Conversely, a good case study hidden behind a login cannot serve a public visitor who follows a citation.

Expect uncertainty in reporting

A dated question set can show whether appearances changed under those test conditions. Referral traffic and customer-reported discovery add commercial context. None reveals all private prompts or establishes a permanent “AI rank”.

Apply this to your business

Tell Graeme what you sell, where customers are and where the journey breaks. The next step is a scoped conversation about ai search visibility and chatgpt discoverability, not an automatic package of unrelated services.