Google calls AEO still SEO

Google has published guidance telling site owners that optimization for AI Overviews and AI Mode remains standard search engine optimization, not a separate discipline. In documentation on Google Search Central, the company says “the best practices for SEO remain relevant for AI features in Google Search” and adds that there are “no additional requirements” or “other special optimizations necessary” to appear in those products. (developers.google.com) The guidance lands as marketers have pushed new labels such as answer engine optimization, or AEO, and generative engine optimization, or GEO, to describe tactics aimed at AI-driven search interfaces. (developers.google.com) Search Engine Journal, which first highlighted the update this week, said Google’s language amounts to a direct rebuttal to a growing market for AI-search playbooks built around separate technical checklists. Google’s documentation does not ban experimentation. But the company’s public message is that inclusion in AI Overviews and AI Mode starts with the same crawlability, policy compliance and content quality standards it already applies in Search. (developers.google.com) ### If Google says AI search is still SEO, what exactly did it say? Google Search Central says site owners can “apply the same foundational SEO best practices for AI features as you do for Google Search overall.” The page lists technical eligibility for Google Search, compliance with Search policies, and “helpful, reliable, people-first content” as the relevant baseline. (searchenginejournal.com) The same document says there are “no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode.” That phrasing is the clearest official statement yet that Google is not asking publishers to build a parallel optimization stack just for those interfaces. (developers.google.com) ### Where do AI Overviews and AI Mode fit in Google’s own system? Google says AI Overviews and AI Mode are Search features that surface links to help users find information quickly and explore content they may not have found otherwise. The company says AI Mode can use a “query fan-out” technique that runs multiple related searches across subtopics and data sources while generating a response. (developers.google.com) Google also says the two products may use different models and techniques, so the responses and links they show can vary. AI Overviews, the company says, appear only when its systems determine the feature adds something beyond classic Search. (developers.google.com) ### What does this mean for tactics like custom schema and AI-specific formatting? Google’s structured-data documentation says schema helps the company understand page content and can enable rich results. But that guidance is tied to supported Search features, not to a separate AI-search markup standard. (developers.google.com) Search Engine Journal reported that Google’s newer AI-search guidance also downplayed tactics such as llms.txt, content chunking and AI-specific rewrites as things site owners do not need to prioritize. Google’s official AI-features page does not present any of those as requirements, and instead points publishers back to core SEO practice. (developers.google.com) ### Why are marketers talking about AEO and GEO in the first place? Search marketers have coined AEO and GEO to describe efforts to make pages easier for AI systems to extract, summarize and cite. (developers.google.com) A growing vendor market has promoted files such as llms.txt and page formats designed for language models, alongside more familiar SEO work. Google’s position, based on its documentation, is narrower. The company says site owners should focus on being crawlable, meeting Search technical requirements and publishing content that is useful and reliable. (searchenginejournal.com) ### What should a publisher or B2B marketer watch next? Google’s Search Central blog remains the company’s public channel for changes to search features, crawling guidance and Search Console tools. The documentation page on AI features is also where Google lays out how AI Overviews and AI Mode work from a site owner’s perspective. (searchenginejournal.com) As of May 16, 2026, Google had not published a separate technical standard for AI-search eligibility on its Search Central pages. Any future change would most likely appear first in Search Central documentation or on the Search and SEO blog, where Google posts updates for site owners. (developers.google.com 1) (developers.google.com 2)