Hasty SEO · AEO
What is AEO? Answer Engine Optimization, from the inside.
Classic SEO ranks pages in result lists. AEO — Answer Engine Optimization — earns citations inside the answers generated by ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews and Copilot. This page is the short, honest definition; Hasty SEO is the tool that runs it for you.
- Coverage in ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews
- Prioritised actions — not raw data dumps
- Swedish-built, Swedish-tuned
Definition
What AEO actually is.
AEO is the practice of structuring content, entity signals and citations so AI answer engines surface your brand, your URL and your facts when they generate an answer. The mechanics overlap with SEO — entity clarity, schema markup, link authority, citable structure — but the success metric is different: share of answers and citation rate per topic, not position on a list.
AEO vs SEO vs GEO
Three letters, three jobs.
SEO optimises for the ten blue links. AEO optimises for being the cited source in an AI-generated answer. GEO — Generative Engine Optimization — is the broader frame covering every generative surface, including image and video generators referencing brands. In practice AEO and GEO share most of the playbook; we use the terms together at Norrhavet.
Which engines
The answer engines worth tracking.
ChatGPT and Perplexity citing visible URLs. Google AI Overviews surfacing structured snippets. Microsoft Copilot pulling from Bing's index. Claude citing primary sources. Each surface weighs entity authority and citable structure differently — Hasty SEO tracks all four as separate visibility channels alongside classic Google.
Measurement
What good AEO looks like in a dashboard.
Three signals matter: (1) share of answers — how often you appear in answers to your target queries; (2) citation rate — how often the answer links back to your URL; (3) entity recall — does the AI describe you accurately when prompted. Hasty SEO surfaces all three by query and competitor, so you ship the next action instead of staring at a graph.
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What is Answer Engine Optimization (AEO)?
AEO is the discipline of structuring content so generative engines — ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini — can extract, cite and attribute it correctly. It complements SEO: SEO earns the click, AEO earns the citation when the answer is given without a click.
Källor
OpenAI publishes the GPTBot user-agent specification, including crawl rules and disallow conventions.
Anthropic publishes ClaudeBot's user-agent and crawl policy on their support site.
Perplexity documents PerplexityBot, the user-agent used for indexing and citation lookups.
Google documents the Google-Extended user-agent that controls inclusion of content in Gemini and Vertex AI training data.
Continue
Run AEO on autopilot.
Hasty SEO is the tool inside Norrhavet's toolbox that runs AEO continuously — tracking citations, prioritising next actions and shipping fixes. Visit the product, or read the tool page on Norrhavet for the longer context.
Frequently asked
AEO — FAQ.
What is AEO (Answer Engine Optimization)?+
AEO is the discipline of being cited inside AI search engines — ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews and Copilot — instead of only ranking in classic Google. Where SEO optimises for the ten blue links, AEO optimises for being the source the AI quotes in its answer.
How is AEO different from SEO?+
SEO ranks pages in result lists; AEO earns citations inside generated answers. The mechanics overlap (entity clarity, schema markup, citable structure, authority links) but the success metric differs: SEO measures positions, AEO measures share of answers and citation rate per topic.
And what about GEO (Generative Engine Optimization)?+
GEO is closely related to AEO — some practitioners use the terms interchangeably. The distinction we use at Norrhavet: GEO covers all generative surfaces (including image and video generators citing brands), while AEO specifically targets answer engines. In practice they share the same playbook.
What tool runs AEO at Norrhavet?+
Hasty SEO — the search tool inside Norrhavet's toolbox. Hasty SEO tracks classic Google rankings alongside AEO coverage in ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews, and ships prioritised actions instead of raw data dumps. Live at seo.hasty.se.
How long does AEO take to show results?+
First citations typically appear inside 30–60 days of consistent, structured publishing. The flywheel compounds: each cited page makes the next one easier to cite, because AI answer engines weight entity authority across the whole site.
How do you measure AEO coverage?+
Track three signals: (1) share of answers — how often your brand appears in answers to your target queries, (2) citation rate — how often the answer links back to your URL, and (3) entity recall — does the AI describe you accurately when prompted. Hasty SEO surfaces all three by query and competitor.