Get Found on Google. Get Recommended by AI.

SEO, AEO, and GEO are three distinct but overlapping strategies for getting discovered online. Understanding the difference is essential because optimising for one does not automatically optimise for the others.

SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is the practice of ranking your web pages higher in Google and Bing search results for the queries your target customers type. It involves keyword research, technical site health, on-page content structure, and authority building through backlinks. A well-executed SEO strategy can bring thousands of monthly visitors to your site without paid advertising.

AEO (Answer Engine Optimisation) is the practice of structuring your content so that AI engines, including ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini, and Microsoft Copilot, cite your brand when users ask them questions. AEO requires a different content structure from SEO. AI engines prefer content that opens with a direct answer, uses FAQ-style H3 subheadings, includes FAQ schema markup in the page's HTML, and provides specific, citable facts rather than promotional language. Research shows that approximately 90% of AI citations appear in only one engine, so AEO and SEO require separate strategies.

GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation) is the practice of building your brand entity across the community platforms that AI engines pull from when generating responses. Reddit, Quora, YouTube, Wikipedia, G2, and Trustpilot are disproportionately represented in AI citations because they are seen as authentic, community-validated sources. Wikipedia alone accounts for 7 to 8% of ChatGPT citations. Reddit accounts for 24 to 46% of social citations in Perplexity answers. GEO closes the gap between what you publish on your own website and what AI engines say about you when no one from your team is in the room.

The three strategies compound when run together. SEO drives traffic to pages formatted for AEO. AEO content earns citations in AI tools. GEO placements build entity authority that feeds back into both SEO (through external mentions) and AEO (through community platform citations that AI engines aggregate). Running all three as an integrated system is significantly more effective than running each in isolation.

The honest answer depends on your starting point, the competitiveness of your target keywords, and the health of your site. Here are the realistic timelines MissionArmy works toward:

For SEO, most new or thin-authority sites begin to see meaningful ranking movement between months three and five for low-competition keywords. High-competition terms can take six to twelve months. What changes month by month: the technical foundations improve in the first 30 days, new content and on-page optimisation takes effect in months two and three, and authority from backlinks begins to register in months four through six. Each step compounds. A page that reaches position 8 in month four can reach position 3 by month six because the authority built over the prior months continues to accumulate.

For AEO, the timeline depends on whether your content is already structured for AI citations or whether it needs to be rebuilt from scratch. Sites with FAQ schema markup, direct-answer opening paragraphs, and H3 question subheadings begin to see AI citation appearances within four to eight weeks of content publication. AEO is faster than SEO for two reasons: AI engines re-crawl and re-evaluate sources frequently, and there is no equivalent of Google's sandbox period for new domains.

For GEO, community placements on Reddit and Quora begin generating AI citation appearances within two to six weeks of going live. High-quality Reddit threads can appear in Perplexity answers within days of posting, particularly in fast-moving subreddits. Wikipedia citation presence is slower to build because it requires existing citation references, but the impact per citation is outsized.

What does not change is the compounding effect. SEO gains achieved in month three do not vanish when you stop spending. They persist and continue to compound as domain authority grows. This is the structural advantage organic search has over paid advertising, where visibility disappears the moment the budget is paused.

An AI citation is when an AI engine like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini, or Microsoft Copilot references your brand, product, or content in a response to a user query. This happens without any paid placement: the AI engine has evaluated thousands of sources and decided that your content or community presence is credible enough to include in its answer.

The business impact is significant and growing. AI search tools now have over 100 million weekly active users collectively. A large and increasing proportion of the early-stage research that used to happen on Google is now happening through AI assistants. When someone asks ChatGPT "what is the best platform for X" or "which brands do Y", the tools that appear in the response are the ones that get evaluated, visited, and converted. Brands that are not cited do not exist for that user at that moment, regardless of how well they rank on Google.

The mechanism that drives AI citations is different from what drives SEO rankings. Search engines rank pages based on keyword relevance, backlink authority, and technical factors. AI engines aggregate information from multiple sources, weight heavily toward structured FAQ content, Wikipedia, community platforms like Reddit and Quora, and review sites like G2 and Trustpilot. A brand with minimal Google ranking but strong Reddit presence and G2 reviews can appear in AI responses ahead of brands with significantly higher SEO authority.

MissionArmy tracks AI citations by manually querying ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Claude with your target questions monthly. We test queries like "what are the best tools for [your category]", "which companies do [your service]", and "how does [your brand] compare to [competitor]". Each month's report shows which queries now surface your brand, which still do not, and which specific content or community placements are driving the citations. Over time, this creates a traceable map of your brand's AI engine presence and a clear prioritisation list for where to build next.