What AEO is

Answer engine optimisation (AEO) is the practice of structuring content so that systems which give a direct answer, in place of a list of links, can find and quote it. Those systems include Google’s featured snippets, AI Overviews and AI Mode, and assistants such as ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot and Perplexity.

AEO is the search industry’s label. Google lists no AEO requirement: “There are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, nor other special optimizations necessary.”[1] The label still describes useful work. You write the answer in plain words, put it where a reader or a machine will find it and back it with accurate markup.

AEO builds on SEO. A page that search engines can’t crawl and index doesn’t reach an answer engine.

Where answers appear

Answer engines take three main forms.

  • Featured snippets are boxes at the top of Google results, with the descriptive snippet first. Google’s systems decide whether a page makes a good featured snippet. You can’t mark a page as one, though you can opt out with nosnippet or a lower max-snippet value.[2]
  • AI Overviews and AI Mode write a summary with links to supporting pages. Google must index the page and be able to show it in Search with a snippet before the page can become one of those links. Google adds that “indexing and serving isn’t guaranteed.”[1]
  • AI assistants answer in a conversation and name their sources. Our GEO guide covers how they find content.

The shift is measurable. In Pew Research Center’s March 2025 browsing sample, about 18% of Google searches produced an AI summary, and people clicked a link inside the summary in about 1% of visits.[5] In about two-thirds of searches, people browsed elsewhere on Google or left without clicking a result.[5]

How AEO works in practice

The techniques are plain writing and tidy code. Google’s guidance for AI features lists the basics: allow crawling, keep important content in text form, link pages together and keep structured data consistent with the visible text.[1] Five habits follow.

  • Lead with the answer. Open each section with a direct answer in the first sentence, under a heading that matches the question, then add detail. Our rule of thumb is 40 to 60 words for that first answer. It’s our working rule, not a Google requirement.
  • Write headings as questions customers ask. “How much does it cost?” tells a reader and a machine what the section answers. Google’s starter guide recommends clear, descriptive headings.[6]
  • Keep content in text. Google advises keeping important content in text form.[1] A crawler that doesn’t run scripts sees only the page source, so a service page built by script can look empty to it.
  • Be specific and name your sources. Prices, steps, dates and names are easier to quote than adjectives. Show who wrote the page and when it changed.
  • Describe the business in one plain paragraph. Put it on the homepage and repeat the same details elsewhere. Consistency makes you easier to recognise.

Structured data and FAQ markup: what is true now

Structured data describes a page to machines in a standard format, and Google recommends JSON-LD.[4] FAQ markup was a favourite AEO tactic for years because it could produce an expandable question box in results. In August 2023 Google limited FAQ rich results to well-known, authoritative government and health websites and said site owners had no need to remove existing markup.[3] Its AI features guidance adds that you need no special schema.org markup to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, and that structured data should match the visible text.[1]

Markup still earns its place. It’s the clearest way to tell machines who you are and what each page covers. Use an Organization or LocalBusiness record, your services and the question-and-answer pairs already on the page. Keep every description accurate, mark up only what a visitor can see, and don’t expect markup to lift a ranking.

A newer proposal is llms.txt, a markdown file that points AI tools to your key pages.[7] Google says its AI features need no AI text files,[1] so the file is optional.

Common AEO mistakes

  • Hiding the answer. Scripts, tabs or images hold content that the page source doesn’t contain.
  • Padding. Long introductions delay the point. Answer engines lift the clear part and skip the rest.
  • Markup that disagrees with the page. Structured data should match the visible text.[1]
  • Blocking the crawlers you want. A robots.txt rule or a firewall setting can turn away the bots that read your pages. Google says to allow crawling in robots.txt and through any CDN or host.[1]
  • Expecting a guarantee. No technique guarantees a citation. Google says indexing and serving aren’t guaranteed,[1] and AI assistants choose their own sources.

How to tell whether it is working

List the questions customers ask before they buy: price, comparisons, how the service works. Ask each one in Google and in the main AI assistants. Record who the answer names and which pages it cites. Repeat the check each month.

A search result stands in for an AI answer only in part, so label what you tested and what you inferred. Our reports follow the same habit: each finding says whether we tested it, observed it, inferred it or need to verify it.

How Vyzpro covers AEO

AI search readiness carries 25% of a Vyzpro score, the largest share. For AEO we check whether your pages lead with answers, whether the content reads without scripts, how simple it is to lift a quotable answer from your five priority pages and whether your structured data is accurate. The report includes ready-to-paste JSON-LD for your own site.

See what the AI search audit covers and look inside our report. Related guides: what is SEO and what is GEO.