What is AEO (answer engine optimization)?
AEO, or answer engine optimization, is the practice of writing and marking up pages so that answer engines can quote them directly. Answer engines include featured snippets, People Also Ask boxes, voice assistants and AI answers. AEO puts a clear, short answer near the top of the page, uses questions as headings, and adds structured data such as FAQ schema.
Why AEO matters now
More and more searches end without a click: the answer is shown on the results page, read out by a voice assistant or written by an AI tool. When that happens, the page that gets quoted wins the visit, the brand mention or the trust. AEO is how you become that page.
AEO compared with SEO and GEO
| SEO | AEO | GEO | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Goal | Rank the page in search results | Be quoted as the direct answer | Be read and cited by AI tools |
| Where it shows | The list of results | Featured snippets, People Also Ask, voice answers | ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Google AI Overviews |
| Main levers | Crawlability, relevance, links | Direct answers, question headings, FAQ and HowTo schema | AI crawler access, clear facts, entity schema, citations |
The three overlap. A page that is not indexed cannot be quoted, so AEO builds on good technical SEO. Read What is GEO for the AI side.
AEO checklist
- Answer first. Put a 40 to 60 word answer to the page's main question in the first paragraph, before any background.
- Use questions as headings. Write H2 and H3 headings the way people ask: "How long does shipping take?" rather than "Shipping".
- Keep answers self-contained. Each answer should make sense when quoted alone, without "as mentioned above".
- Use lists and tables for steps, comparisons and specifications. Answer engines quote them often.
- Add structured data. FAQPage for questions and answers, HowTo for steps, and Organization and Person for who wrote it. Keep the schema identical to what the page shows.
- Show who wrote it and when. An author byline and a visible updated date help answer engines trust the page.
- Get the basics right. The page must be indexable, fast, and readable without JavaScript.
How Silkpath checks AEO
The AEO section of a Silkpath report checks every indexable page for:
- FAQ and HowTo structured data, and whether it is valid
- Question-style headings
- A direct answer in the first paragraph
- An author byline
Each check is a filter, so one click lists the pages to fix, and the list exports to Excel for your team.
Questions and answers
Is AEO different from SEO?
AEO is a part of SEO focused on being quoted as the answer, not only ranked. It adds direct answers, question headings and FAQ or HowTo schema on top of normal technical SEO.
Does FAQ schema still help?
Google now shows FAQ rich results mainly for government and health sites, but FAQ schema still tells search engines and AI tools which questions a page answers. Keep it, and keep it matched to the visible text.
How do I check my site for AEO?
Crawl it with Silkpath and open the AEO section under AI Search. It lists the pages without FAQ or HowTo schema, without question headings, without a direct answer or without an author.
Audit a website with Silkpath
Enter a website address and Silkpath crawls every page, then reports SEO, AEO and GEO problems page by page, with PDF, Excel and CSV exports.
Read next
What is GEO
Generative engine optimization: how to be read and cited by ChatGPT, Perplexity and AI Overviews.
AI Crawler Checker
Is your site open to GPTBot, ClaudeBot and PerplexityBot? The agents, the rules and how to check.
Features
Every check Silkpath runs, section by section, and what you get out of a crawl.