AEO (Answer Engine Optimization)
AEO shapes content so it gets picked up by answer engines: Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini. The goal is no longer just the click — it is being named as a source inside the generated response itself.
In practice
A page optimized for AEO opens each section with a compact 40-to-60-word answer that can be lifted verbatim. AI assistants favor passages that are dated, sourced, and attributable to a recognizable entity. A publisher who shares an original statistic along with its methodology stands a far better chance of being cited than an aggregator that merely reprints it.