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Ethan Smith participated in a Clearscope webinar where he talked about the AEO strategies we’ve been testing. Here’s an example 👇

What Should We Call AEO, GEO, AI SEO? * The field focused on optimizing your brand's presence in LLMs like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Meta AI is burgeoning. * Since this is a new field, there is not yet alignment on the most appropriate name. A common start of conversations on this topic is, "AEO, GEO, AIO...whatever it's called?" * Linguistic Conventionalism: Ultimately, the name of a concept and its definition are determined by a group of people reaching a collective agreement. * Motivation: It is helpful to align on a single name to describe marketing for LLMs, as well as a shared set of frameworks and concepts to describe this field. * Debate: To accelerate alignment on a name, I partnered with AthenaHQ and Surfer to debate which is the most appropriate name. * Clickbait: I typically avoid polls and debates as they tend to be clickbait. In this particular case, I do think we need to pick a name, and this is a useful way to accelerate alignment. Poll: Below is a brief summary of each of our arguments. Our more detailed arguments can be found here, along with a poll for people to vote for their preferred name. We will report the winning name. bit.ly/aeo-geo-aiseo Why AEO - Ethan @ Graphite * The discipline at hand is optimizing your brand or product to appear in text-based AI chat such as ChatGPT. "Answers" most closely describe this. * AEO has no strong alternative association, whereas GEO is associated with geography. * Why Not GEO: "Generative" may refer to the generation of images and video, or the generation of avatars and worlds, which is materially different from optimizing for text-based answers. * Why Not AI SEO: It implies that AI is newly used in search, but AI has been a part of search for over a decade. Why GEO - Alan Yao 🏛️ @ AthenaHQ * GEO names what we actually optimize: a generative, tool-using engine that plans, routes, calls functions, and now even transacts. * In agentic flows, success means getting the engine to select your tool, call your API with the correct arguments, cite your source, and return or execute the result. * Why Not AEO: Perplexity brands itself as an “answer engine.” That means “AEO” bakes one vendor’s positioning into the field’s name. * Why Not AI SEO: It conflates a distinct discipline with legacy SEO and risks being perceived as a bolt-on rather than a new optimization surface. Why AI SEO - Tom Niezgoda @ Surfer * SEO has always adapted to new search behaviors. "AI SEO" emphasizes continuity and evolution, rather than starting from scratch. * Assistants don’t replace search—they extend it. AI models still retrieve, rank, and synthesize information just as search does. * Why Not AEO: It is too narrow. It ties the field to “answers” when assistants increasingly deliver plans, comparisons, tool calls, and transactions—not just text snippets. * Why Not GEO: It is too abstract. “Generative” risks diluting the focus on discovery and overlaps with fields like image or video generation.

Ethan Smith & Guy Yalif talked about AEO best practices at the Webflow Conference last month. Key strategies discussed: 🏠 Onsite AEO 1. List Your Features & Use Cases – Summarize sales call questions – Look on Reddit for user questions – Build landing pages by persona and use case 2. List Your Integrations, Languages, and Regions – Cover what users ask for most 3. Add FAQs and Schema to Key Pages Results from adding schema to 6 Webflow pages:  – 331 new citations (57% of all new ones) – Visibility lift across nearly all topics – +149K SEO impressions (24% lift) 🌐 Offsite AEO 1. Engage Reddit Audiences with Genuine Value 2. Make YouTube Videos Answering Long-Tail Questions 3. Get Mentioned by Affiliates Watch the recordings here: https://lnkd.in/e4RPA4Gz

Join Ethan Smith in this Clearscope webinar on how to make your brand show up in AI answers. What you'll learn: *How LLMs like ChatGPT decide which brands to recommend *Tactical channels to grow visibility (Reddit, YouTube, and help center) *How to measure AEO results RSVP to learn Ethan’s AEO playbook. Date: Monday, Oct 27th Signup: https://lnkd.in/d5PrCBmx

More articles are now created by AI than humans. However, it only appears 14% of the time in Google Search. Our research team published a study on AI content, Google, and ChatGPT with Axios. https://lnkd.in/eCKicT5Q Key Takeaways: 1/ The amount of AI content published on the Internet is equal to the amount created by humans. AI-generated content rose in 2023 after ChatGPT launched and reached the same level as humans in 2024, but has remained flat since then, and is not increasing. 2/ AI-generated content only appears 14% of the time in Google Search (n=31k). So, Google is downweighting purely AI-generated content. 3/ 18% of the content found in ChatGPT citations is generated with AI. So, ChatGPT is likely detecting AI-generated content and excluding it from its own citations. 4/ We independently evaluated Surfer's AI Detector and found that it was very accurate with a false positive rate of 4% and a false negative rate of <1%. 5/ AI will continue to become an essential tool to help content creators, and human-edited AI-generated content can work. We did not specifically evaluate human-edited AI-generated content in this study.

What does search look like in a world of LLMs? We’re excited to host a panel during #LATechWeek on exactly that: Future of Search: AI, SEO, & AEO Panel. We’re bringing together leaders across AI, SEO, and growth to explore how founders (and beyond) can adapt to a shifting landscape of discoverability and competition. Featuring Ethan Smith (Graphite), Emily Richardson (KNWN.app), Duane Forrester (SEO veteran, ex-Bing/Yext), and Jacque Alec (Capconvert). Seats are limited. RSVP here: https://lnkd.in/ewYCM96E Thank you to our sponsor Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP for making this possible. Part of TECH WEEK by a16z #SEO #AI #AEO #GEO

Create useful content. Repurpose it across all platforms. That’s how you stay visible in the AI era. Ethan joined Vimeo for an interview on leveraging video to win in AI search. Here’s what creators and businesses should know: 1/ Video + UGC are key. LLMs like real people’s content (videos, social posts) more than brand pages. 2/ Spread your content. Don’t just post on one platform, use Reddit, YouTube, Vimeo, TikTok, Instagram, etc. 3/ Same rules apply. Whether you’re posting on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Google Search, or ChatGPT, the core strategy is the same: 👉Find out what people are asking.  👉Create content that answers those questions. Make it clear, useful, and authentic. 4/ Start now. Early adopters will lead as this channel grows. Watch full interview here: bit.ly/graphite-vimeo

The rise of AEO has become one of the biggest changes in search since Google introduced Panda. Our CEO, Ethan, explains this shift in Lenny Rachitsky’s Podcast: bit.ly/lennyspodcast-aeo Here’s a summary on how to be successful at AEO: 🔹 Topics Ranking in both Google and chat depends on how many questions a page answers. Covering subtopics and follow-up questions increases your chances of showing up. 🔹 Question Research Unlike Google’s keyword tools, there’s no set “question volume” data. Convert keywords into questions (“website builder” → “what’s the best website builder”) and gather more from sales calls, support, and Reddit. 🔹 Citation Optimization LLMs summarize from sources. Break citations into groups (your site and affiliates) and build specific strategies for each. Actionable Strategy 1/ Identify the questions you want to rank for and put them in a tracker. 2/ Check who shows up as citations and create a plan for each source. 3/ Build pages that answer questions and follow-ups. 4/ Run experiments with test and control groups to see what actually works.

We’re partnering with M13 on a session to share practical ways founders and marketers can use Answer Engine Optimization (AEO). Our CEO, Ethan Smith, will walk through lessons from Graphite’s work with companies like Webflow, Notion, MasterClass, and Captions. Here’s what we’ll cover: 🔹How AI is changing discovery and buyer behavior 🔹How to increase visibility in LLMs across different channels 🔹How to structure content around AI questions 🔹How to measure and improve performance over time This session is designed to give teams a clear, practical starting point for AEO. 📍M13 Santa Monica Office 📅 Tuesday, Oct 14th 10:00am – 12:00pm See more here: bit.ly/graphite-m13

Join our CEO, Ethan Smith, in this virtual conference where he'll cover the mindset shifts CMOs need to win in AEO. Learn about:  ✅ SEO tactics CMOs need to leave behind ✅ Underrated opportunities no one is talking about yet ✅ How AEO shifts content, performance, and GTM strategies Sign up: bit.ly/index-25 Date: Wednesday, October 1st