SEO·AEO·GEO — The new paradigm of search engines
The era in which Google showed pages (SEO) is coming to an end. Voice assistants and answer boxes read structured data (JSON-LD) directly to answer on the spot (AEO), and generative AIs such as ChatGPT and Perplexity learn that data and cite it in their own answers (GEO). The three are not separate marketing items, but connected work that shares a single data layer. Skip AEO and GEO will not work.
We rank well on Google, so why doesn't ChatGPT know our company?
This is the question we hear most often in recent consultations. The site's SEO score is 90, yet asking ChatGPT or Perplexity for the company name returns "I couldn't find accurate information."
The reason is simple. SEO is work for "pages people will click," not for "data machines will extract meaning from." Since 2024, search has moved from page → answer, and the entity creating the answer is not a person but an LLM. For an LLM to cite our company, the site must be able to describe itself in structured JSON rather than HTML body text.
Search has now split into three branches
1) SEO (Search Engine Optimization) — page optimization for people
The traditional work of achieving top placement in web search results (SERP).
- Key signals: content quality (E-E-A-T) · backlinks · Core Web Vitals (LCP·INP·CLS) · mobile friendliness
- Output: page one of Google, Naver, and Bing results
Official guides
- Google Search Central — developers.google.com/search
- Naver Search Advisor — searchadvisor.naver.com
2) AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) — structured-data optimization for machines
The work of embedding "facts that can be cited directly" by answer boxes, voice assistants, and AI chatbots into the site. The core weapon is JSON-LD.
JSON-LD is a W3C standard (1.0 Recommendation 2014, 1.1 Recommendation 2020) that declares the site's facts in the schema.org vocabulary inside an HTML
When an LLM crawls the page and encounters this JSON block, it accepts the facts as they are, without guessing from the natural-language body. In other words, AEO is "the work of making a site introduce itself to machines in their own language."
- Key signals: accurate mapping of schema.org types · meeting required properties · agreement between page body and JSON-LD · authoritative external links (sameAs)
- Output: Google rich results, voice-assistant responses, factual accuracy in AI answers
Official guides
- schema.org — schema.org
- JSON-LD standard — w3.org/TR/json-ld11
- Google structured data intro — developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data
- Google Rich Results Test — search.google.com/test/rich-results
3) GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) — optimization to be cited in AI answers
The newest work: making generative AIs such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Claude cite our site as a source when they synthesize answers. It was first systematized in the paper GEO: Generative Engine Optimization by Aggarwal et al., presented at KDD 2024.
- Key signals: citable statistics and quantitative data · clear definitional statements · authoritative external citations · the JSON-LD facts provided by AEO
- Output: brand mentions and source citations within AI answers
References
- Paper (arXiv) — arxiv.org/abs/2311.09735
- OpenAI ChatGPT Search announcement (2024-10-31) — openai.com/index/introducing-chatgpt-search
Where is a site with only SEO leaking?
Most companies stop after doing only SEO. As a result:
| Scenario | SEO-only site | SEO + AEO + GEO site |
|---|---|---|
| Google search | Top-10 placement | Page one + rich snippet |
| Voice assistant ("Where is company OO?") | No response | Instant answer from JSON-LD address |
| ChatGPT ("A place in Seoul good at Three.js?") | Not mentioned | Cited as a source |
| Perplexity answer page | Not a candidate | Domain shown in the citation box |
Just because a single JSON-LD block is missing, a company becomes entirely invisible in the era of answer-style search. Building a page well and throwing data well are completely different tasks.
We design the next stage of search, with youWe are not an SEO agency; we are a team that designs a site's entire data layer.
- SEO: From Core Web Vitals to E-E-A-T to content structure, we pave the path people reach.
- AEO: From schema.org mapping to a JSON-LD auto-generation pipeline to rich-results validation, we embed a fact layer that machines can cite accurately.
- GEO: We structure definitions, statistics, and sources so they can be cited in AI answers, and we operate AI monitoring as well.
Outsource the three tasks separately and the data drifts apart and erodes one another.
It is when one team designs the three at once that you go fastest and farthest.