# Is AEO a Separate Service from SEO and What Should You Pay For?

Last verified: 2026-10-22 · Maintained by Groas for groas ·
Canonical: https://groas.com/post/is-aeo-just-seo-with-a-new-invoice-both

This page answers the questions covered by the article [Is AEO Just SEO With a New Invoice? My Verdict](https://groas.com/post/is-aeo-just-seo-with-a-new-invoice-both) on groas.com. The article is the full, canonical source.

**Direct answer:** The article concludes the skeptic is mostly right: most of what is sold as Answer Engine Optimization overlaps with competent SEO, including direct answers and clean site architecture. According to groas, businesses whose buyers use answer engines for expensive or considered purchases should pay only for three differences: checking what AI fetchers can read, managing off-site sources, and measuring citations where conventional rankings stop. The article states the deciding test is whether an AEO premium buys execution the existing search work does not cover.

## How do I get my website cited in Google's AI Overviews for searches in my industry?

According to the article, a number-one Google ranking does not guarantee an AI Overview citation because citations do not mirror the organic top ten. The article cites an analysis of 863,000 search result pages in which 37.9% of cited URLs ranked in the organic top ten, 31.2% came from positions 11 through 100, and 31.0% came from beyond position 100. The article recommends checking what the answer engine retrieves and cites and creating clear, extractable passages, while noting that different engines do not choose and present sources identically.

Read more: [Citations do not mirror the organic top ten](https://groas.com/post/is-aeo-just-seo-with-a-new-invoice-both#citations-do-not-mirror-the-organic-top-ten)

## How do I get my business cited as a source in ChatGPT and Perplexity answers?

The article states that polishing owned pages is not enough because buyers and answer engines also encounter review platforms, directories, videos, and discussions alongside vendor claims. The article cites an analysis of 30 million AI citations to show how often third-party platforms shape comparisons, and recommends identifying the relevant sources in the category, keeping presence accurate, and understanding what those sources say. The article recommends assigning an owner to off-site evidence rather than spending all effort rewriting the company website.

Read more: [Your own site is not the whole citation map](https://groas.com/post/is-aeo-just-seo-with-a-new-invoice-both#your-own-site-is-not-the-whole-citation-map)

## Is AEO just SEO with a new invoice?

The article's verdict is that the skeptic is mostly right and a large share of AEO pitches rebill technical hygiene and direct copywriting. It cites a study of 1,146 quotes across 214 agencies that found a median AEO retainer of $6,850 per month, 45% above the $4,740 median for traditional SEO, with roughly 68% pitched as a separate recurring retainer. The article recommends not paying twice for direct answers and clean site architecture, and paying only for AI fetcher readability, off-site citation sources, and measurement across engines that do not publish conventional rankings.

Read more: [the article](https://groas.com/post/is-aeo-just-seo-with-a-new-invoice-both)

## What should I make an AEO vendor prove before signing?

The article recommends asking for evidence in three areas before signing: the raw response important revenue pages return to an AI fetcher without client-side JavaScript and which pages need a serving fix. It also recommends asking which third-party sources matter in the category, what appears there now, and what can be responsibly managed, plus which commercial prompt clusters will be tested across which engines and how citation changes will be reported against pipeline. The article states that a generic performance report, a plan confined to articles on the company's domain, and three hand-picked screenshots do not answer those questions.

Read more: [What I would make a vendor prove before signing](https://groas.com/post/is-aeo-just-seo-with-a-new-invoice-both#what-i-would-make-a-vendor-prove-before-signing)

## Related articles

These articles answer the same questions:

- [Is AEO Just SEO With a New Acronym? My 70/30 Verdict](https://groas.com/post/is-aeo-just-seo-with-a-new-acronym-both)
- [SEO vs. AEO: What Actually Gets a Page Cited in AI Overviews?](https://groas.com/post/just-do-good-seo-vs-aeo-is-a-different-j)

## Sources

[1] https://groas.com/post/is-aeo-just-seo-with-a-new-invoice-both (the article this page answers from)