# AEO Services: What They Include and What to Pay For **URL:** https://mettevo.com/blog/article/aeo-services-what-they-include-and-what-to-pay-for **Published:** 2026-10-20 **Updated:** 2026-10-20 **Author:** Oleg Silin **Category:** Blog | Mettevo > Discover what AEO services include, from content optimization and structured data to answer engine visibility, helping your business earn more organic traffic. ![AEO Services](https://stage.mettevo.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/Laptop_displaying_AI_chat_interface_20261020113337.jpg) --- AEO (answer engine optimization) services are paid work to get your content retrieved, quoted and cited by answer engines: the AI (artificial intelligence) features in Google, ChatGPT and Perplexity. [Google's guide to these features](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/ai-optimization-guide), updated July 10, 2026, says optimizing for generative AI search is "still SEO," so the buying question is which deliverables are genuinely new. ## **TL;DR** - AEO, GEO and "AI SEO" overlap but aim at different outcomes: a ranked link (SEO), an extracted answer (AEO) or a mention in a generated response (GEO). - Five deliverables are checkable: crawler access, answer-first pages, entity markup, third-party coverage and prompt-set measurement. [Google says](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/ai-features) its AI features need no special schema. - No provider can guarantee a citation. Google says [no one can guarantee a number one ranking](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/do-i-need-seo), and that indexing and serving "aren't guaranteed." - First citations can appear within 4 to 8 weeks of changes shipping, and we read trends from month four. That staging is our planning model, not a benchmark. - A 20-prompt tracker cannot reliably show a move from 10% to 20% in citation rate. That takes roughly 200 prompts per period. ## **What is the difference between AEO and SEO, and is AEO the same as GEO?** AEO and GEO overlap but are not the same. In our working definitions, the AEO vs SEO difference is the unit each one tries to win: SEO a ranked link, AEO the extracted answer, GEO a mention inside a generated response. GEO (generative engine optimization) was introduced in a research paper as a framework for raising visibility inside generative engine answers. Label What it tries to win How success is counted SEO A ranked link. Position, clicks and conversions. AEO The extracted answer: a snippet, voice reply or AI answer. Whether you are the quoted source. GEO A mention inside a generated response. Citation rate on a fixed prompt set. "AI SEO" No settled meaning. Ask the seller which one. Google treats the labels as one field. Its [guide to generative AI features](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/ai-optimization-guide) says the best practices for SEO continue to be relevant because its generative AI features "are rooted in our core Search ranking and quality systems." Because the work overlaps, one deliverable list can be sold under several labels, although Google's statement covers only its own features, not ChatGPT or Perplexity. Our test: ask each provider for the deliverables and success metric behind each label. If they match across labels, you are buying one service under three names. One measured difference is the source mix. For U.S. software-product queries, earned media (third-party coverage) supplied 72.7% of the AI search sources against 45.4% of Google's, and brand-owned pages fell from 43.7% to 26.7%. It used consumer prompts and one model, so the size for B2B buyers is unknown. ## **What does an AEO agency actually do?** An AEO agency, also called an answer engine optimization agency, should hand you five deliverables, each with a way to check it yourself. The last column is our read: new work or existing SEO. Deliverable What you should receive How to check it Our read Crawler access Per-agent robots.txt rules separating search agents from training agents. Open /robots.txt and look for OAI-SearchBot, Claude-SearchBot and PerplexityBot. New agents, old mechanism. [Answer-first pages](https://mettevo.com/seo/on-page-seo) Rewrites that lead with the answer under question headings. Compare each page before and after. Old: snippet work. Entity markup Organization, Person and Article markup matching the visible page. Run it through a free structured-data validator. Old: structured data. Third-party coverage A list of outlets and reviews, with outreach status. Ask for the live URLs. Old: outreach work. Prompt-set measurement A prompt list, a baseline and monthly runs per engine. Re-run ten prompts yourself on a call. New. [OpenAI](https://developers.openai.com/api/docs/bots) says sites opted out of OAI-SearchBot "will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers" but can still appear as navigational links, and that a robots.txt change can take about 24 hours to apply. [Anthropic](https://support.claude.com/en/articles/8896518-does-anthropic-crawl-data-from-the-web-and-how-can-site-owners-block-the-crawler) warns that blocking Claude-SearchBot "may reduce your site's visibility and accuracy in user search results." [Perplexity](https://docs.perplexity.ai/guides/bots) says changes may take up to 24 hours to show. When we read mettevo.com's robots.txt on October 16, 2026, every AI user agent it names was allowed to fetch the site root. [Google says](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/ai-features) AI Overviews and AI Mode need no special schema, machine-readable files or markup, so I treat entity markup as accuracy hygiene, not as a lever. Google also stopped showing FAQ rich results on May 7, 2026, a reminder that markup deliverables can expire. ## **What AEO services do not include** Three things sometimes sold as AEO cannot be delivered or are not worth buying. Ask any provider to confirm none is in your contract: - **Guaranteed citations.** Google's guidance on hiring an SEO says no one can guarantee a number one ranking, and its AI guide says "Indexing and serving aren't guaranteed." A citation guarantee is a stronger promise than either, and I would treat it as a reason to walk away. - **A bought or promised position in ChatGPT or AI Overviews.** Paid placement is an advertising product run by the platforms. Google said that it was expanding ads in AI Overviews and bringing ads to AI Mode.  - **Files and page multiplication.** [Google's guide](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/ai-optimization-guide) says you do not need llms.txt files, AI text files, new markup or Markdown copies for Google Search, and that Google Search ignores llms.txt files. Creating separate content for every search variation, primarily to manipulate rankings or generative AI responses, violates Google's scaled content abuse spam policy. Our own site publishes an llms.txt file, which we treat as housekeeping, not a deliverable. ## **Realistic timelines: what shifts by month three, six and twelve** The staging below is our planning model, not a measured distribution. None of the Google, OpenAI, Anthropic or Perplexity documents cited in this article gives a time-to-citation estimate; the timings they do publish for search visibility concern crawler changes. Window What can shift What it cannot show yet Months one to three Crawler changes apply within about a day (OpenAI, Perplexity), and Google says crawling can take a few days to a few weeks. Our GEO page says initial citations can appear within 4 to 8 weeks of restructuring. Any trend. Two readings are not a trend. Months four to six A stable baseline and comparable month-over-month readings. Our GEO page puts consistent growth across engines at 2 to 4 months of ongoing optimization. Cause and effect, unless some pages were held back as a control. Months seven to twelve Third-party coverage and branded demand, the slowest signals, can begin to show. Revenue attribution without a control group. ## **How is AEO measured?** We measure AEO on three layers, and none of them is traffic. [Our GEO page](https://mettevo.com/seo/generative-engine-optimization) says our reports include exact queries, competitor citation share and month-over-month trends. That gives citation rate per engine on a fixed prompt set, plus share of voice: your citations as a share of all citations to you and named competitors. The third layer is impressions in Google's AI features, from Google's [Generative AI performance report](https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/16984139) for Search. The report covers AI Overviews and AI Mode, reports impressions only and includes data from the Web search type in the main Performance report. It reached all websites worldwide as of August 31, 2026. Impressions are not visits.  Small prompt sets are a second trap in AEO reporting. If a tracker reports citations in 3 of 20 prompts (15%), a 95% Wilson interval runs from about 5% to 36%, so 6 of 20 next month (30%) sits inside the same range. Detecting a real move from 10% to 20% takes roughly 200 prompts per period at a two-sided 5% significance level and 80% power. Our own numbers show how hard attribution is. In [our audit of September 10, 2026](https://mettevo.com/blog/article/ai-visibility-tools-what-they-measure-and-miss), impressions on the mettevo.com Search Console property fell from 390,704 in February 2026 to 146,119 in August 2026, a drop of about 63%. Average position improved over the same months, from 26.75 to 23.41, so a rank-only report would have shown a gain. We could not separate AI Overviews from a core update or seasonality, and neither the one AI visibility tool we ran hands-on nor Search Console linked a specific citation to a change in impressions. The sample is one property, one seven-month window, one tracker and one third-party data connection; four other trackers were compared on their published pages only. ## **The 5 questions to ask any AEO service provider** Each question below tests the service, not the sales deck, and shows what a good answer looks like. 1. **Which of the five deliverables are in my scope, and what do I keep if we part ways?** A good answer is a written list that also hands over the prompt list, baseline data, change log and page edits in a usable format. 2. **Which prompts will you track, who writes them, and how many are there?** A good answer uses your buyers' real questions and reports intervals. Below roughly 200 prompts per period, small moves are noise. 3. **Which results depend on sites you do not control?** A good answer separates on-site work from third-party coverage and says the second is slower and less certain. 4. **Which result, by which date, would make us stop?** A good answer writes a stop condition into the contract instead of promising an outcome. 5. **How will you separate your work from everything else that changed?** A good answer keeps a dated change log and holds some comparable pages back as a control. ## **How much do AEO services cost, and when are they worth it?** Your situation Fund first Why Key pages are not indexed, or say little that is original. [Traditional SEO](https://mettevo.com/seo) and [content marketing](https://mettevo.com/seo/content-marketing). A page must be indexed and snippet-eligible to appear in Google's AI features. You rank on page one for core terms, yet competitors are named in assistant answers. AEO. The SEO base exists, so the gap is answer-first structure and third-party coverage. Your Search Console shows no Generative AI report. Traditional SEO, plus a one-off AEO audit. Google says the report may be absent without enough generative AI impressions. Google says its AI features are rooted in its core ranking and quality systems, so fix indexing and ranking problems before buying AEO work. When the foundation is sound, start with a one-time audit that sets a baseline and a prompt list, then judge any retainer on what it finds. [See how Mettevo delivers AEO and GEO work for clients](https://mettevo.com/seo/generative-engine-optimization). ## **FAQ** ### **What are AEO services?** AEO services, also sold as answer engine optimization services, are paid work to get your content retrieved, quoted and cited by answer engines. A sound scope covers crawler access, answer-first pages, entity markup, third-party coverage and prompt-set measurement. It excludes guaranteed citations and bought positions in AI answers. ### **Can an AEO agency guarantee citations in ChatGPT?** No. [Google's guidance on hiring an SEO](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/do-i-need-seo) says no one can guarantee a number one ranking, and its [guide to AI features](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/ai-optimization-guide) says indexing and serving are not guaranteed. OpenAI says that ads do not influence ChatGPT's answers, so advertising does not buy a place in them. I would not sign a contract that promises a citation. ### **What are the best answer engine optimization tools?** Citation trackers run a prompt list on several engines. In [our September 2026 audit](https://mettevo.com/blog/article/ai-visibility-tools-what-they-measure-and-miss), four of five trackers publish a price, and on September 14, 2026 their entry plans ran from $29 to $300 a month. The one we ran hands-on could not tie a citation to a change in Search Console impressions, and Google's guide says no third-party tool has access to its internal ranking or AI systems.