Is AEO just standard SEO? What Google won’t tell you, and what most businesses can’t do
- Manelik Sfez
- Sep 9
- 3 min read
Not long ago, I saw a guy who sells an online SEO course release a video saying that AEO (for Answer Engine Optimization) is a myth. That you don’t need it. That it’s just regular SEO with a fancy name. And to prove it, he quoted a Google rep… and pulled up websites like the New York Times and the New York Post.
That immediately made the argument feel off track. Because the problem isn’t that AEO is hype. The problem is that SEO is only viable if you’re already a media machine. Let’s have a look into this openly and practically.
What Google actually said, and why it doesn’t apply to most businesses
Yes, someone at Google said you don’t need AEO or “GEO” to show up in AI Overviews. They said that good SEO practices are enough. And they’re not wrong; but they’re not talking to you. They’re talking to companies that:
Publish multiple articles per week
Have technical SEO teams
Maintain structured data at scale
Already rank for hundreds of terms
And have authority signals Google trusts implicitly
When Google says “just do SEO,” they’re assuming you're the New York Times. But if you're a law firm, a SaaS startup, a consultancy, or a local brand with a team of five... that advice doesn't help you. It actually keeps you stuck.
Why you should take what Google says with a grain of salt
And here’s another reason this advice is short-sighted: the distribution model is not guaranteed to stay the same. Recently, Perplexity reportedly offered $34.5 billion to acquire Google Chrome. They weren’t buying a browser; they were buying the main gateway to the internet.
If Chrome — the world’s most widely used browser — became AI-native overnight, the largest user base in the world could shift from SEO-driven results to AEO-driven answers in a single update. In that world, the rules Google gives you today wouldn’t even be the rules tomorrow. The businesses already structured for AI readability would own the results, and everyone else would be invisible.
AEO is not standard SEO. It's not a rebrand. It’s a reframing.
Let’s be clear: AEO is not “better than SEO.” It’s built on the same principles:
Clear H1s and content hierarchy
Structured metadata
Internal linking
Semantic consistency
But the goal is different. SEO was made for indexers. AEO is made for interpreters. AI tools don’t rank. They synthesize. They cite. They extract. And they only quote what they understand.
That’s why AEO focuses on structuring your site for visibility in conversations, not just search results. If SEO gets you on the list, AEO gets you into the answer.
AEO is for the 90% who can’t “do SEO” the Google way
Most businesses don’t have the time, budget, or team to maintain weekly content, constant optimization, and technical upkeep. AEO is for them.
It’s for regular businesses that want:
To be visible in AI tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Bing
To be cited, not just crawled
To stop relying on volume and backlinks
To be understood by machines, once and well
AEO is not just standard SEO and its goal is to structure your digital presence so it lasts. Not so you’re playing catch-up every month.
The truth: If you do AEO right, you’ve already done SEO
This is where we close the loop. When you do AEO right, you’re already doing a good, super solid base layer of SEO. Just differently. And better aligned with how the internet actually works now.
You're still:
Using semantic tags
Writing clear, structured content
Linking logically
Clarifying entities and relationships
But you’re doing it with one additional outcome in mind: being understood and cited by AI. AEO work is robust SEO, plus depth and intelligence.
AEO is not a new SEO method; it is a new form of infrastructure
AEO isn’t a trend. It’s just the name for something SEO never finished because it wasn't supposed to: making content not just visible, but comprehensible to an intelligence. So no, AEO isn’t just SEO. It’s SEO evolved for businesses who can’t afford to chase rankings forever. And if you’re one of them, this might be the most strategic shift you make.
About the author
Manelik Sfez, founder of the Swiss brand consultancy Ultrabrand, brings 25 years of international business, marketing, and brand strategy experience to the table. He has worked with some of the world’s most iconic brands throughout his career. From luxury goods to global retail, financial services and technological and industry giants, he has guided companies through brand-led transformations that have enabled significant business growth.
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