Member Avatar for mahin24

I’ve been reading a lot lately about the shift from traditional SEO (Search Engine Optimization) to AEO (Answer Engine Optimization), especially with the rise of AI assistants and featured snippets.

SEO focuses heavily on rankings, backlinks, and keyword optimization.

AEO is all about structuring content so that it directly answers user intent, making it easier for answer engines like Google Assistant, ChatGPT, or Alexa to pull from it.

Has anyone here actively shifted their content strategy to prioritize AEO over SEO? If so, have you seen noticeable changes in traffic or visibility? Or is AEO just a buzzword right now with limited practical benefit compared to solid SEO fundamentals?

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by graceweb
Member Avatar for Dani

It has to do with the type of website that is trying to gain traffic. However, for the most part, content sites are pretty frustrated that AI bots are scraping all of their content and then using it to directly answer a searcher's question, without the searcher ever having to visit the website. This is especially tough on content-based websites with high quality, well-researched content that generate revenue through advertising. Money and effort was put into creating the content and it's being served up to searchers for free.

However, for many of these content-based websites, DaniWeb included, we're in a Catch-22 because we still want to rank by search engines, especially sites whose business models rely on almost all traffic being driven from search. In order to appear in Google's search results, we are required to allow Googlebot to scrape all of our content and use it for its AI engine.

Edited by Dani
Member Avatar for harrymr672

SEO is still the foundation, but AEO is becoming more important as search shifts toward AI, voice, and quick answers. The best approach? Use SEO to get found, and AEO to get featured. You need both to stay future-ready.

Member Avatar for graceweb

It's interesting to see how content needs to be structured to meet direct user intent, which can help in capturing those featured snippets. It feels like a dual strategy might be the best way forward—optimizing for traditional search while also ensuring content is easily digestible for answer engines.

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