TL;DR
- The difference: SEO ranks your page in a list. AI SEO gets your brand named in an answer.
- Two meanings: "AI SEO" also means AI tools for SEO work. Not this post.
- What stays the same: Google says there are no extra requirements.
- What changes: The engines disagree. And 77% of what they cite are listicles.
- Which first: Fix indexing first. Already rank? Run the 20-minute test.
Does AI name your brand? Check your site.
Traditional SEO gets your page into a list of links.
AI SEO gets your brand into the answer.
You need both.
AI answers still depend on pages that bots can crawl. But they pick their sources in a different way.
And the click is changing:
- 8% click a result when Google shows an AI summary. 15% when it doesn't. (Pew, March 2025.)
- 38% of pages cited in AI Overviews also rank in the top 10. It was about 76% in July 2025. (Ahrefs.)
So ranking still helps. It just isn't the whole game anymore.
Two Meanings of AI SEO
Careful. The phrase means two things.
- SEO for AI answers. Getting your brand named and cited by AI engines. That's this post.
- AI tools for SEO work. Using AI to cluster keywords, draft content or audit pages. See ChatGPT for SEO and the best AI SEO tools.
Several pages that rank for this search use the second one.
Key Differences: AI SEO vs Traditional SEO
| Difference | Traditional SEO | AI SEO |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Where you show up | One ranked list of links | A written answer that names brands and lists sources |
| 2. How people ask | Short keywords | Long prompts |
| 3. What you optimize | One page per query | The questions around a query, plus your presence on other pages |
| 4. What counts as authority | Links to your pages | Mentions on pages the engines already cite, linked or not |
| 5. Do the engines agree | One index, one ranking | No. Each engine builds its own list |
| 6. What a win looks like | A click | A mention or a citation. A click is rare |
| 7. How you measure | Rank tracker, Search Console, analytics | A fixed set of prompts scanned across engines |
Now the data. Row by row.
1. Where you show up
Most searches still show a list of links.
Pew counted an AI summary on 18% of Google searches in March 2025.
And Google says AI Overviews appear only when its systems judge them additive to classic Search. So they often don't trigger.
2. How people ask
Longer.
Semrush looked at one brand, Petlibro:
- 1,886 top-10 keywords. Four words on average.
- 625 AI responses (ChatGPT, AI Mode, AI Overviews). Prompts of eight words on average.
One brand. One vendor's data. But Pew points the same way: AI summaries showed for 8% of one or two word searches. And 53% of searches with ten or more words.
3. What you optimize
Not one page per query. The questions around it.
Google says AI Overviews and AI Mode may use "query fan-out". They run several related searches to build one answer.
Ahrefs reads its falling top-10 overlap as a sign that more citations come from those related searches.
So answer the questions around the main one too.
4. What counts as authority
Mentions. Linked or not.
Semrush's author asked Google's AI Mode which clothing brands are ethical. It recommended Nudie Jeans. One of its sources: a Guardian article that mentions the brand without a link to its site.
One example isn't a study. The leaderboard data is wider: see below.
5. Do the engines agree
No.
- Ahrefs, June 2025: only 7 of the 50 most-mentioned websites appear for all of AI Overviews, ChatGPT and Perplexity.
- Our leaderboard: all five engines mark the same product 1st on 11 of 255 questions.
6. What a win looks like
A mention. Not a click.
Pew: people clicked a link inside the AI summary in just 1% of visits.
Our own numbers are in Why AI SEO Matters Now.
7. How you measure
A rank tracker records a position in a list.
An answer has no fixed position. And Pew notes an AI summary for the same search can change over time.
So you ask the same prompts, the same way, on each engine. And log what comes back. See how to measure both.
What Is AI SEO?
The work of getting your brand named and cited in AI answers.
The old question: "How do I rank on page one?"
The new question: "Which brands does the answer name? And which pages does it cite for them?"
Here's the twist. The cited pages are often not yours. On "best X" questions, most of them are listicles. (Data below.)
AI SEO, GEO, AEO and LLMO mostly describe this same work. AI SEO vs GEO vs LEO vs LLMO vs AEO vs AIO sorts out the names.
What Is Traditional SEO?
The work of getting your pages crawled, indexed and ranked in a list of search results.
Four parts:
- Technical access
- Content that matches what people search for
- Links from other sites
- Measurement by position and clicks
AI engines need the first two as well. (What stays the same.)
Why AI SEO Matters Now
Two things are true at once.
1. People click less when an AI summary shows.
Pew again. People ended their browsing session on 26% of pages with an AI summary. Against 16% of pages with only normal results.
(Google only. March 2025.)
2. AI assistants still send few visitors.
Don't take my word. Here are the referrers for this site. 1 July to 30 September 2026, 5,375 visitors, from DataFast:
| Referrer | Visitors | Share of all visitors |
|---|---|---|
| 671 | 12.5% | |
| ChatGPT | 29 | 0.5% |
| Claude | 5 | 0.1% |
| Perplexity | 3 | 0.1% |
ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity together: 37 visitors. About 0.7%.
Google sent about 18 times as many.
(DataFast shows no separate row for Gemini or Copilot.)
So is AI SEO pointless? No.
A referrer report only counts people who clicked a link in an answer. It can't see someone who reads the answer, then types your brand name.
So don't judge AI SEO by traffic alone. The first question is simpler:
Do the answers name you at all?
Does AI name you?
See if AI mentions your brand. Then get the pages to fix.
What Stays the Same
Most of the base.
Google says so itself.
Its page on AI features and your website says SEO best practices remain relevant for AI Overviews and AI Mode. No extra requirements. No special optimizations.
To be a supporting link, a page must be indexed and able to show a snippet. That's it.
Bots need access.
- OpenAI: OAI-SearchBot surfaces sites in ChatGPT search. Opt out, and you won't be shown in ChatGPT search answers. GPTBot (training) is a separate setting.
- Perplexity: PerplexityBot is designed to surface and link sites in its search results.
Both recommend allowing their bot in robots.txt.
JavaScript can hide your text.
In December 2024, Vercel found that the crawlers from OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, ByteDance and Perplexity do not render JavaScript.
Gemini uses Googlebot's infrastructure. That one does.
The analysis is almost two years old. So check for yourself. The free Page Inspector shows what AI can read on a URL.
Ranking still helps. But it's not the only way in.
Ahrefs measured how many pages cited in AI Overviews also rank in the top 10 for the same keyword.
- July 2025: about 76%.
- March 2026: about 38%. (863K keywords, 4M cited URLs.)
AI Overviews only.
What AI SEO Looks Like in Practice
Real data now. From our own leaderboard.
One question, five answers.
Take best password manager, scanned 23 September 2026.
- ChatGPT: Bitwarden first.
- Perplexity and AI Overviews: 1Password first.
- Gemini and Copilot: NordPass first.
Gemini names neither Bitwarden nor 1Password. At all.
The engines name 13 products between them.
A one-off? No.
The leaderboard has 343 questions. On 255 of them, all five engines named at least one product.
All five agree on #1 in 11 of those. That's 4%.
(The count uses product names as the table lists them.)
So there's no single "AI ranking" to climb. You have a position on each engine.
Whose pages do the engines cite?
The leaderboard's Cited pages card, on 2 October 2026:
| Page type | Share of cited pages | What it means for you |
|---|---|---|
| Listicles | 77% | Get named in the "best of" lists the engines cite |
| Vendor pages | 10% | Your own pages get cited far less than lists |
| 2% | Small on these questions | |
| News, guides, comparisons and other | 11% | The rest |
77% lists. 10% vendor pages.
YouTube is the largest single domain, at 5% of cited hosts. Ahrefs also calls YouTube the most cited domain in AI Overviews. In its March 2026 study, YouTube pages outside Google's top 100 alone made up 5.6% of all cited URLs.
The limit: these are "best X" questions, one scan each. A picture of buying questions. Not of every prompt.
Three jobs follow:
- Get named on the pages that are cited.
- Find out what those pages say about you.
- Close the gaps.
How: get in AI visibility listicles and how to get cited in AI answers.
Traditional SEO isn't dead — but it's no longer enough
SEO is the base.
For Google's AI features, a page that isn't indexed can't be a supporting link. Full stop.
But it's not enough alone. A top-10 rank doesn't decide a citation. And the engines don't agree on who to cite.
Where to start depends on where you are:
| Your situation | Start with | Why |
|---|---|---|
| A new site with few indexed pages | Traditional SEO | Google: a page must be indexed and eligible for a snippet to be a supporting link |
| You rank in the top 10 but are never named in AI answers | The 20-minute test, then the cited-source gap | Ahrefs: about 38% of AI Overview citations also rank in the top 10 |
| You sell in a "best X" category | Get onto the lists the engines cite | Leaderboard: 77% of cited pages are listicles, 10% are vendor pages |
| Your site depends on client-side JavaScript | Check what AI can read first | Vercel, December 2024: the OpenAI, Anthropic and Perplexity crawlers do not render JavaScript |
How to Measure Both
Traditional SEO: a rank tracker, Search Console and analytics.
AI SEO: a fixed set of prompts. Run them on each engine. Log the answers.
(For the Google side: how to track Google AI Overviews.)
The 20-minute test
- Pick five queries where you already rank in the top 10.
- Rewrite each as the prompt a buyer would type. Longer. In full sentences.
- Ask each prompt in ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google (AI Overviews). That's 15 answers. For a quick ChatGPT-only try, use the free AI Visibility Checker.
- For each answer, log three things: does it name you? Does it cite a page of yours? Where do you appear?
- Compare with your rank. Write down which pages the engines cite instead.
You rank but aren't named? Look at the pages the engines cite. That's where the gap is.
Know the limits.
- AI summaries change over time. Repeat the same prompts before you trust one result.
- The leaderboard numbers are one scan per "best X" question.
- DataFast counts referrers. Not what an answer does to later direct visits or brand searches.
The same test at scale.
The AI SEO Tracker report. $49, once.
It writes up to 50 prompts from your site. You confirm them. It scans ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot and Google AI Overviews. Daily for 7 days. One brand.
You get mentions, citations, position in the answer, competitor gaps, the sources each engine cited and a prioritized action plan.
It doesn't scan Google AI Mode, Claude, Grok, DeepSeek or Meta AI. Weekly tracking plans exist.
The metrics: how to measure brand visibility in AI.
TL;DR: What to Do Now
- Let the right bots in. Check robots.txt for Googlebot, OAI-SearchBot and PerplexityBot. Page Inspector shows what AI can read on a page.
- Keep the SEO basics. Pages you want cited in Google's AI features must be indexed and able to show a snippet.
- Run the 20-minute test. Five queries where you already rank.
- Find the cited pages. See which pages each engine cites for your prompts. Get named there.
- Rescan on a schedule. Same prompts. Compare.
FAQ
Is AI SEO better than traditional SEO?
No. They do different jobs.
Traditional SEO gets your pages indexed and ranked. AI SEO gets your brand named and cited in answers.
And the first feeds the second. For Google's AI features, a page must be indexed and able to show a snippet.
What is AI SEO called now?
GEO (generative engine optimization). AEO (answer engine optimization). LLMO. LLM SEO.
Mostly the same work. This post compares the names.
Is AI search replacing traditional search?
Not on the evidence so far.
Pew counted an AI summary on 18% of Google searches in March 2025. And Google says AI Overviews appear only when they add to classic Search.
Clicks fall when a summary appears. But the other searches still show only links.
Is AI SEO effective?
Depends on the metric.
It can change whether an answer names you. It rarely shows up as clicks yet. On this site, ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity sent 37 of 5,375 visitors from 1 July to 30 September 2026.
The studies here don't measure revenue. So track mentions and citations. Not traffic alone.
