SEO, AEO, AIO, and GEO solve different visibility problems.

Start with the outcome ladder

A page can be public without being indexed, indexed without ranking, ranked without being selected as an answer source, cited without being recommended, and visited without converting. Each stage needs its own evidence.

SEO owns the conventional discovery foundation. AEO owns direct-answer fitness. AIO is the Google AI Overview specialization. GEO owns product-specific mentions, citations, recommendations, and representation.

What can be shared

Accessible HTML, clear page purpose, consistent entity facts, useful evidence, descriptive headings, internal links, and honest conversion paths can benefit every discipline. One root cause should be fixed once and listed with the other disciplines as beneficiaries.

What must stay separate

Google Search, Gemini Apps, ChatGPT Search, Perplexity, and Claude expose different controls and evidence. A result from one product cannot be relabeled as cross-platform visibility. Training crawler access is also separate from live retrieval.

Primary guidance used for this guide

Phase One reviews current first-party platform guidance before turning a platform claim into an implementation recommendation.