8 / 10 · 80%
Observation coverage. Two missing answers reduce coverage; they are not negative brand answers.
SEO & AI visibility
SEO, GEO, AEO and AIO: what should you actually do?
SEO improves search discovery. AEO focuses on useful direct answers. GEO focuses on visibility and representation in generated answers. AIO is used more broadly for AI optimisation; some people also use it for AI Overviews, so always name the actual surface. These labels overlap. They do not require four copies of the same page.
Four terms, three different questions
| Term | The question | Evidence to inspect |
|---|---|---|
| SEO · Search engine optimisation | Can the right searcher discover a useful page? | Crawl access and page evidence; actual indexing, queries, impressions and clicks from the relevant search account. |
| AEO · Answer engine optimisation | Does the page answer the user's question clearly? | Visible answers, context, semantics and applicable structured data. Readiness does not prove an answer was displayed. |
| GEO · Generative engine optimisation | Does a recorded AI answer mention, cite or recommend the business accurately? | The original answer, prompt, provider, interface, model when known, market, sources and collection time. |
| AIO · AI optimisation | Which AI-mediated discovery or task are we improving? | Name the actual product and measurement surface. Write “Google AI Overviews” in full when that is what you mean. |
Turn the labels into one useful workflow
- Audit: run a free website scan. Check its URL coverage before interpreting the findings. A 10-page sample cannot establish the state of an entire large website.
- Observe: save the report to your workspace. Use your own AI accounts to capture the same customer questions, or explicitly run a configured API connection. Keep consumer answers and API results in separate groups.
- Review: open the original page and answer. Decide whether there is a real defect, a missing fact or no justified change. Metadata drafts are proposals based on recorded page content.
- Implement: review the implementation plan in your website project or CMS, test important tasks and publish through an authorised process. An UltimateSEO report does not silently edit your website.
- Verify: re-crawl the affected URLs and repeat the same AI question set. Inspect resolved, remaining and new findings. Keep measured outcomes separate from a prediction of better rankings.
Read a small result without overstating it
Illustrative calculation, not a customer result: you plan 10 AI runs, receive 8 usable answers, find 2 brand mentions and 1 explicit recommendation.
2 / 8 · 25%
Brand presence among observed answers. A mention is not automatically a recommendation.
1 / 8 · 12.5%
Overall recommendation coverage. The conditional 1 / 2 rate is 50%, but reporting only that would hide the wider gap.
This small illustration cannot establish a market share or a durable improvement. Preserve counts, collection failures and a consistent panel when comparing periods. If no answers were observed, the rate is not measurable; it is not zero.
What changes for Google AI Overviews and AI Mode?
Google's current guidance builds generative Search visibility on SEO foundations: useful original content, accessible pages and appropriate technical eligibility. It also documents a Search Console inclusion setting and a Generative AI Performance report. Confirm the actual property and report availability. Native impression data is separate from your own sampled AI answers and cannot be relabelled as recommendations or revenue.
Google does not require llms.txt, special AI markup, tiny text chunks or a separate page for every query variation. Useful content and truthful structured data still need a real audience purpose.
Choose the next task from the evidence
If a public page cannot be retrieved, investigate access first. If the page works but a useful answer is missing, improve that existing resource. If the business is cited without being recommended, inspect what the answer actually says rather than assuming a citation means a sale. If the evidence does not justify an edit, keep the page and gather the missing data.
Implement an SEO audit · Design an AI visibility benchmark · Read the measurement methodology · Explore the current 128-control catalogue
Sources and responsibility
Published by UltimateSEO, a product of Ultimate Vision Ltd, on 14 October 2026. Prepared with AI assistance. The terminology table describes our working definitions, not an industry-wide standard. The workflow describes the current product; the numerical example is synthetic.