SEO, GEO and AEO: What Each One Is and Where to Start

What SEO, SEM, GEO and AEO are

What SEO is fits in one line: it is the work of getting a page to appear in the results of a search engine such as Google without paying for each click. The other three acronyms are just as short:

• SEO (search engine optimization): organizing a website’s content, titles and technical side so Google can find it, understand it and show it when someone searches for what the business sells.
• SEM (search engine marketing): buying ad space on the results page. The ad shows while it is paid for and disappears when payment stops.
• GEO (generative engine optimization): making a business’s information the material an AI tool, such as ChatGPT, Gemini or Google’s summaries, uses to build its answer.
• AEO (answer engine optimization): writing so that a search engine or an AI can lift a paragraph and show it as a direct answer.

According to Aarón Gómez in his interview with Radar, the practical difference is this: in SEO a company competes for a click, and in GEO it competes to be the source the AI cites, even if the user never visits the website. In the AEO interview, Aarón Gómez describes the page-design change that follows: the concrete answer goes in the first two lines, before any introduction.

The four acronyms share the essentials. All of them depend on content that answers a real question, on a page that can be crawled and on information that can be verified. They differ in where the result appears and how it is paid for. SEO and SEM live in the results list, the first earned through work and the second bought. GEO and AEO target the answer block that appears at the top or inside an AI assistant.

Myth: AI killed SEO

The myth spreads with every artificial intelligence summary that appears above the results: if the AI answers, nobody clicks anymore and ranking stopped being useful.

Reality: there are fewer clicks in some cases, but that does not mean SEO died. A study by the Pew Research Center with 900 U.S. adults and 68,879 searches from March 2025 found that when an AI summary appears, users clicked a traditional result in 8% of visits, compared with 15% when it does not. Only 1% clicked a link inside the summary. These are U.S. figures, and no equivalent measurement has been published for Panama.

The consultancy Seer Interactive found something similar for informational queries: organic CTR, the share of people who see a result and click it, fell 61% between June 2024 and September 2025 (from 1.76% to 0.61%) across 3,119 terms from 42 clients. The analysis itself is limited to informational queries and does not prove that AI is the cause.

The nuance matters: both studies measure clicks, not visibility or sales. And in its documentation on AI features and your website, Google says SEO best practices remain relevant for appearing in those features. Radar consulted this source on November 6. What changed is what counts as success: appearing and being cited, in addition to getting the click.

Myth: GEO replaces SEO

It is often said that SEO is a thing of the past and that now one must “optimize for AI” as a new, separate discipline.

Reality: GEO rests on SEO. According to Aarón Gómez in his GEO interview, Google has said publicly that its AI features rely on the same ranking systems as traditional search, so good SEO is the foundation. In Aarón Gómez’s words, it is not a separate discipline with new tricks but well-done SEO focused on clarity and structure.

The Google Search Central blog published in May 2025 that what the company has long recommended also applies to its AI experiences, with an emphasis on unique, non-generic content. It can be read in “Top ways to ensure your content performs well in Google’s AI experiences”, by John Mueller.

One data point supports the idea that the two overlap. An Ahrefs analysis of 75,000 brands found a correlation of 0.664 between a brand’s web mentions and its visibility in AI Overviews, against 0.218 for backlinks. It is a correlation, not a cause: it shows that the most mentioned brands tend to appear more, without proving that mentioning them makes them appear.

Myth: AEO and GEO require special tricks or files

Some services sell a special file, a “magic” markup or a hidden tag to appear in AI answers.

Reality: on its page about AI features and your website, Google states there are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, and no other special optimizations. It asks for the familiar: an indexed page eligible to show snippets, crawling allowed, internal links and the important content in text. Radar consulted this source on November 6. Aarón Gómez agrees in his interview: he called selling “AI optimization” as a separate service with technical gadgets smoke.

Structured data, which some present as the trick, has a clear rule in Google’s policies: it must faithfully represent the page and must not mark up content the reader cannot see. Radar consulted this source on November 6. In the AEO interview, Aarón Gómez recommends that a small business use only markup that matches what is visible, such as organization, local business and real frequently asked questions.

AEO does not depend on a magic text length or a formula either. What helps, according to the same interview, is a first sentence that answers, short paragraphs and headings that phrase the question the way a customer would.

Myth: SEO and SEM are the same thing

Because both acronyms start with “se” and both concern search engines, they are often used as synonyms when asking for a quote or reading a proposal.

Reality: they are two different ways of showing up. SEO is earned through content and technical work, and its effect builds over time. SEM is bought: when the spending stops, the ad disappears. For a small business on a tight budget, Aarón Gómez proposes in his digital marketing interview deciding by one question: if people already search for what is sold, it makes sense to start with SEO and the Google profile, because it captures existing demand without paying per click; if the product is new and nobody searches for it yet, ads can build awareness faster.

The practical lesson for anyone hiring is to ask that the proposal state which of the two is being offered. Guidance for evaluating a provider is in the article SEO agency in Panama: how to choose one and which promises to ignore.

Myth: showing up in ChatGPT is something you pay for

There is also the idea that a fee exists for ChatGPT to recommend a business, as if it were a directory.

Reality: OpenAI’s documentation on its crawlers describes a different mechanism. The OAI-SearchBot bot is the one that lets sites appear in ChatGPT search, and OpenAI recommends allowing it in the robots.txt file. Sites that block it do not appear in ChatGPT search answers, although they may show up as links, and changes take about 24 hours. That page mentions no payment to appear. Radar consulted this source on November 6.

Allowing crawling does not guarantee a citation. A Semrush analysis of more than 100 million citations across ChatGPT search, Google AI Mode and Perplexity found that cited sources shift a lot from one month to the next: Reddit, for example, went from about 60% to about 10% of citations in ChatGPT between August and September. The conclusion Radar draws is that no position in AI is permanent, and that any promise of a “guaranteed first place” has no backing.

To find out whether a company already appears, Aarón Gómez recommends in his GEO interview asking five questions a real customer would ask in several tools, noting where the business shows up and repeating the exercise every two weeks, because the trend matters and not a single query.

Whether a small business needs all three and where to start

A Panamanian small business does not need to hire three different services. It needs a base, and that base is SEO: a website Google can crawl, with one page per service and direct answers. GEO and AEO rest on that base without extra groundwork. SEM adds value when there is a concrete, measurable offer.

Aarón Gómez sets the priorities in his SEO interview: first claim and complete the Google profile, second write or rewrite one page per main service with the answer in the first lines, and third verify in Search Console that the site is indexed and free of critical errors. The steps for a business starting from zero are these:

On timing, Google’s starter guide says some changes take hours and others several months. Aarón Gómez gives an honest range of 2 to 4 months for first signals and 6 to 12 for consolidated results, based on his experience. The full walkthrough is in How to do SEO: real steps and myths to drop.

Related articles

• Web ranking, AI and digital marketing in Panama: the complete guide
• How to do SEO: real steps and myths to drop
• How to show up on Google Maps with a business in Panama
• SEO agency in Panama: how to choose one and which promises to ignore
• Aarón Gómez answers: how to check if AI mentions your business
• Aarón Gómez answers: how to get Google and AI to use your text as the answer

Sources

All sources were consulted on November 6. Pew’s data is from the U.S. and Seer’s covers informational queries; Ahrefs’ figure is a correlation.

• Google Search Central, SEO starter guide.
• Google Search Central, AI features and your website.
• Google Search Central, structured data policies.
• Google Search Central Blog, top ways to ensure your content performs well in Google’s AI experiences, May 21, 2025.
• Pew Research Center, clicks with an AI summary, July 22, 2025.
• Ahrefs, brand correlation with AI Overviews, May 26, 2025.
• Seer Interactive, AI Overviews impact on CTR, November 4, 2025.
• Semrush, domains most cited by AI, November 10, 2025.
• OpenAI, bots and crawlers documentation.
• Aarón Gómez’s interviews with Radar: SEO, GEO, AEO and digital marketing.