Executive Summary
The Road From SEO to AEO
The world of technology loves a good hero story. Experts map maturity curves to illustrate how long it took for radio, television, computers, or the internet to gain mainstream adoption, comparing it to the meteoric rise of ChatGPT’s generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) explosion into consumer awareness. Search engine optimization (SEO) versus answer engine optimization (AEO) is getting the same curvy treatment.
SEO began in earnest in 1998 when Google first introduced PageRank as a new framework for search engine results. It would take SEO, as a practice and investment, another five years to hit the mainstream of marketing strategies and budgets. The “Golden Era” of SEO hit its peak when COVID-19 shutdowns sparked a massive shift to online shopping and a hunt for information. Demand for SEO soared to record highs in a race to grab homebound digital attention.
By the end of the global pandemic, the age of authenticity was in full swing. Brands that flourished were those that bid farewell to brochureware websites and instead invested in thoughtful digital content strategies and intentional acts of online engagement. By the time Google doubled down on EEAT (experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness) as the core of its quality rater guidelines (QRGs), a monster industry full of back-linking, crawlability experts, content optimizers, and keyword authorities was in play.
That is, until GenAI and the rise of generative engine optimization (GEO).
