Is AEO or GEO Just SEO With a New Name?

Short answer: mostly, yes. AEO (answer engine optimization) and GEO (generative engine optimization) describe where your firm shows up, inside an answer instead of a list, but the work that gets you there is the work good SEO has always required. Google's own staff have said so in public. The one honest caveat is that AI tools such as ChatGPT lean harder on what other websites say about your firm, so an SEO plan that only chases rankings won't cover them. A plan that also builds your reputation across the web will. You don't need a second package for that.

I'm Ashikur Rahman. I run Proximity Ranker, I work only with law firms, and I came to search from law school: I hold an LL.B and an LL.M, and I've done SEO since 2017, including as former SEO Manager at Doctor Rank. One client's site I worked on earned 208,400 citations from Microsoft's AI assistants in three months, across 131 cited pages, and none of that came from a separate GEO project. It came from ordinary SEO work done thoroughly. This article is about search and marketing, not about law, so treat nothing here as legal advice.

Why are law firms being told AEO and GEO are something new?

Because new names are easier to sell than old ones. Since AI answers started taking clicks away from the list of results, agencies have published playbooks on how to sell GEO, and several of them say it plainly: offer it as an upgrade to clients who already pay you for SEO. One of those sales guides even lists the question you're probably asking, "is this just SEO with a new label?", as an objection to handle on the call.

That doesn't make AI search fake. People really do ask ChatGPT, Gemini and Google's AI Mode to recommend a lawyer, and the firm that gets named often gets the call without anyone clicking a link. The question for a law firm owner is narrower: does showing up there require different work, or the same work with a new invoice? Google Autocomplete suggests that plenty of people are asking the same thing. "Is geo just seo" and "aeo is just seo" are both suggested searches, and so is "geo vs seo reddit", which usually means people want an answer from someone who isn't selling anything.

What has Google actually said about AEO and GEO?

Google has been unusually direct on this, and it has said the same thing several times.

• Danny Sullivan, a director in Google Search and its former search liaison, told WordCamp US in August 2025 that good SEO is good GEO. He then listed the labels going around, "AEO, or AI SEO, or LLM SEO, or LMNOPEO", to make the point that the acronym doesn't change the work.
• Gary Illyes of Google said in July 2025 that normal SEO is all a site needs to appear in Google's AI features.
• Google's own guide from May 21, 2025, "Top ways to ensure your content performs well in Google's AI experiences on Search", gives advice any SEO would recognize: unique content written for people, pages Google can crawl, a good page experience and structured data that matches what's visible.
• Google's documentation on AI features says a page needs to be indexed and eligible for a snippet to be used as a supporting link, with nothing additional on the technical side.
• John Mueller of Google wrote in June 2025 that no AI system currently uses llms.txt, the file some agencies sell as an AI search essential, and in June 2026 he called it purely speculative.

Google is one company and it isn't neutral here, so its word doesn't settle every engine. But for Google's own AI Overviews and AI Mode, which run inside the search engine most of your clients use, it's the most authoritative statement available. My guide on how law firms show up in Google AI Overviews goes through that side in detail.

Where does "it's just SEO" fall short?

Outside Google, the line gets less tidy, and it's worth being honest about it. Ahrefs compared the pages ChatGPT cites with Google's top results. For short, simple queries, 10% of ChatGPT's citations were pages in Google's top 10. For the longer follow-up searches ChatGPT runs behind the scenes, it was 6.82%. A second Ahrefs study of 15,000 prompts across ChatGPT, Gemini and Copilot found an average overlap of about 12%. Ranking first on Google, in other words, does not mean ChatGPT will name you.

The same company studied 75,000 brands to see what tracks with visibility in Google's AI Overviews. The strongest link was with mentions of the brand on other websites, a correlation of 0.664, well ahead of backlinks at 0.218. Ahrefs is careful to say that's a correlation and not proof of cause, and I'd say the same. But the pattern is consistent across studies: AI answers draw on what the wider web says about you, not only on your own pages.

So here is the precise version of the claim. AEO and GEO are not separate crafts, but they are a test of whether your SEO is complete. If your agency's SEO means rank tracking and keyword pages, AI search will expose the gap. If it means a site the engines can read and understand and a reputation other sites confirm, the same work covers both. For a law firm, that second kind of SEO was always the right kind, because clients have always checked reviews, directories and referrals before calling.

What actually decides whether Google or an AI engine recommends a law firm?

Legal topics sit in what Google calls Your Money or Your Life: subjects where bad information can hurt someone's finances, safety or future. Google's Search Quality Rater Guidelines hold those topics to the highest standard, and they name trust as the most important part of E-E-A-T (experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trust). Raters don't set rankings, but the guidelines describe what Google's systems are built to reward, and AI engines facing the same risk behave the same way. Three things carry all of it.

Is every page clear about one client problem?

Intent clarity means each page answers one kind of need, in the words a client would use. A page titled Practice Areas that lists twelve services can't be the best answer to anything. A page about what a divorce consultation costs, or what to expect when hiring a lawyer after a truck crash, can. Engines that write answers pull passages, so a page with one clear purpose and the answer near the top gives them something to quote. This is the oldest rule in SEO, and it's the whole of AEO.

Can an engine verify who stands behind the page?

Authority is what other places say about you, and whether it matches. That means named lawyers with real bios, the same firm name, address and phone on your site, your Google Business Profile and every directory, a bar or law society listing that confirms the lawyer exists, and mentions in local news or professional associations. When an engine checks several sources and they agree, your firm becomes a safe name to give. When they disagree, it picks someone else.

Would a careful client trust what they read?

Trust comes from proof and honesty: dated results instead of vague claims, a plain explanation of how fees work, reviews in which clients describe the kind of matter you handled, and no promises about outcomes. A page that over-claims reads as risky to a client and to any system trained to avoid harmful advice. A page that explains clearly and shows evidence reads as safe to recommend.

How does the same work show up on one law firm page?

Take a family law firm's page about divorce consultations. The searches behind it are ones I see in client data all the time: how much does a divorce lawyer cost, what should I bring to a divorce consultation, how do I choose a divorce lawyer near me. Here is how one page does all three jobs.

• Intent: the page is only about the first consultation, and it opens with a two-sentence answer about what it costs at this firm and what happens in it. That earns the ranking (SEO) and gives answer engines a passage to lift (AEO).
• Authority: the lawyer who runs the consultations is named, with a bio linked from the page, and the firm's details match its Business Profile, its directory profiles and its bar or law society listing. That's what lets an AI tool name the firm with confidence (GEO).
• Trust: the page shows dated reviews that mention consultations, explains fees in plain terms and doesn't promise any result. The client feels safe calling, and so does the engine recommending it.

None of those steps is labeled AEO or GEO on my task list. They're the same page, built properly. The new part is only the scoreboard, which now has to include AI answers alongside rankings and calls.

How can you check whether your SEO already covers AI search?

You can test your current agency's work without buying anything new. These are the checks I run first in an audit.

• Can AI crawlers read your pages? View a page with JavaScript turned off. If the text disappears, the crawlers behind ChatGPT and Claude may see an empty page.
• Is your firm in Bing, not just Google? Several AI assistants draw on Bing's index, and Bing Webmaster Tools now shows an AI performance report.
• Do your firm's details match everywhere? Compare your site, Business Profile, Avvo, Justia, Super Lawyers and your bar or law society listing line by line.
• Does your monthly report show AI numbers? A complete report puts Search Console, Business Profile calls and AI citations side by side. If AI search never appears, it isn't being measured.
• Is llms.txt being sold to you as the AI fix? Google's own staff say no AI system relies on it. It's harmless, but it isn't a strategy.

If your agency passes those checks, you're already doing AEO and GEO, whatever the invoice calls it. If it fails them, the fix is better SEO, not an extra retainer. My guide on how to tell if your law firm SEO company is working has the wider checklist.

How much should a law firm pay to cover SEO, AEO and GEO?

With me, one price covers the lot. The SEO plan is $799 a month for the first five firms, a founding rate that stays the same for as long as a firm stays on the plan, and $1,199 a month for firms that join after them. It's month to month, and it includes local and on-page SEO, Google Business Profile work, AI search optimization and a monthly report with the AI numbers in it. The audit, negative review removal and Google Ads management are included, and six months on the plan brings a new website at no extra cost.

If you'd rather buy one piece, the audit costs $350 for one office or $550 for two, websites run $799 for up to 10 pages, $1,599 for up to 25 and $2,599 for up to 50, review removal is $199 for each review Google removes, and Google Ads management is $499 a month. Every term is on the pricing page, and the AI search optimization page shows how that part of the work runs.

What else do law firm owners ask?