The first time I saw one of my sites cited in a ChatGPT response, I had not done anything special to chase it. I had published a long, specific guide on genmaicha tea — one that answered questions nobody else had covered in plain English — and within a few months, customers were messaging me … Read more
The first time I noticed Google’s AI Overviews stealing clicks from pages I’d spent weeks building, it wasn’t on a broad keyword. It was on something niche—a kinako ice cream recipe that had ranked steadily for years. Impressions held. Clicks dropped. The AI Overview had absorbed the answer and the reader never needed to visit. … Read more
Answer engine optimization (AEO) is the practice of structuring your content so AI-powered systems — Google’s AI Overviews, Perplexity, ChatGPT — cite it when answering user questions. Unlike traditional SEO, which competes for a ranked position, AEO targets the answer itself. The AI reads your page, extracts the clearest response, and quotes it. Whether the … Read more
About eighteen months ago I noticed something strange. A page on one of my sites was getting almost no clicks despite ranking on the first page of Google. I checked the actual search results and saw why: Google’s AI Overview was answering the question completely before anyone reached my link. The traffic had moved upstream … Read more