GEO and AEO, in plain language.
Two acronyms for the same shift: being the source an answer engine quotes rather than a link it lists.
The definitions
Answer Engine Optimisation is work that makes a page the answer a system quotes rather than a link it lists. Generative Engine Optimisation is the same idea aimed at systems that synthesise an answer from several sources at once. Both describe optimising to be the cited source. The distinction between the two acronyms matters less than the shift they both point at, and vendors use them interchangeably.
What changes in practice
The unit of value moves from a page ranking to a passage being extractable. That rewards stating the answer directly under a heading that matches the question, publishing pages that each cover one question properly, and making the organisation behind the answer unambiguous. It penalises pages that bury the answer under three paragraphs of positioning, which is most of the roofing web.
What answer-shaped content looks like
Six properties, all of them writing decisions rather than technical ones.
Why this is not a new discipline
Almost all of it is what a good technical writer would have done anyway. The reason it needs a name is that a decade of content marketing trained people to do the opposite: open with a hook, build to the answer, keep the reader scrolling. That structure was optimised for time on page. It is precisely wrong for a system that needs to find an answer and attribute it.
What it does not mean
It does not mean writing for machines instead of people, and it does not mean stuffing questions into headings you then answer badly. A page that reads as an FAQ generated by a tool is worse than the buried-answer version, because it fails both readers. The test is whether a homeowner who reads only your first two sentences leaves knowing the answer.
Where the vendor claims get dishonest
There are no published figures for AI citation rates in roofing. Anyone quoting a percentage of AI answers that cite a given source type is either citing research from another sector or inventing it. Ask which study, which sector, which year. This site publishes no such number for the same reason it publishes its prices: a figure you cannot check is worth nothing to you.
Whether it is worth your attention yet
It is worth doing because it costs almost nothing beyond doing the writing properly, and because the same work improves ordinary search performance and conversion. It is not worth reorganising your marketing around, and it is not worth paying a premium for as a separate service. Treat any vendor selling GEO as a standalone product with the scepticism the acronym invites.
How to rewrite one page to test it
Pick the service page that matters most and restructure it without changing a fact.
What to expect from that change
Not a ranking jump you can point at. What you should see is the page holding readers who arrived with a specific question, more enquiries mentioning something they read, and over time the page appearing as a cited source when you check the systems manually. None of that arrives in a fortnight, and none of it shows up on a dashboard.
Where the acronyms will end up
Probably absorbed. In five years this will not be a separate discipline with its own name, any more than mobile-friendly is now. It will be part of what writing a page properly means. That is a reason to do the work and a reason not to buy it as a product.
Related guides.
The retrieval and attribution mechanism, described without invented statistics.
Nine checks, each verifiable before launch, and the two that fail most often.
How AI answer engines retrieve and cite sources, and what actually makes a roofing site citable.
Find out if your site is citable.
$2,500, and you see every answer a competitor is cited for and you are not.