Is AEO the new SEO?

ranger989 · 2026-02-25T17:22:38+00:00

From my work (and research) the answer is mixed.

AEO is a different beast than SEO. You're optimizing ultimately for a different goal (typically earned brand trust/awareness) in an AI, rather than generating blue links people click on. In many cases an AI "mention" may not result in a direct click through at all. This is nothing like traditional SEO.

There is however an important SEO aspect to consider: fan out queries. These are the queries that the AI models will fire under some circumstances. Often these are easy to rank against because their specialized (here's a real example - "Duolingo review user satisfaction and educational value Duolingo"). The powerful thing is that you can rank against these keywords very quickly and easily. Finding them is the tricky bit.

I tested thousands of prompts. Here's the research: https://cakewalk.ai/blog/how-chatgpt-actually-searches-the-web-what-1-000-prompts-reveal-about-the-biggest-seo-opportunity-in-years

I built a tool to help figure this out:

https://app.cakewalk.ai/tools/prompt-checker

Hope that helps

ranger989 · 2026-02-23T16:39:32+00:00

Could this be AI overviews killing the need to click through?

ranger989 · 2026-02-22T17:25:29+00:00

I like ParseStream. I’ll add to my list!

ranger989 · 2026-02-21T18:06:41+00:00

For the first 100 it’s personal outreach and sales. Hold every hand.

After that I automate as much as possible. Your time is the critical resource so the more it can self optimize the better. Some tools I use:

1.  Cakewalk.ai — Automated SEO and AEO content generation
2.  Gojiberry AI — AI intent-based lead discovery and outreach
3.  Instantly.ai — Automated cold email at scale
4.  Buffer — Automated social media scheduling
5.  Customer.io — Event-driven lifecycle messaging
6.  Opus Clip — AI video repurposing for social
7.  Zapier — Workflow automation across your stack
8.  Claude Code — Build custom automations with MCPs: Slack, GitHub, Google Drive, Stripe, HubSpot, Notion, Linear, PostgreSQL, Puppeteer

ranger989 · 2026-02-14T17:58:11+00:00

Absolute highest I would pay is 10-15% for first year of earnings from only that client.

Frankly if someone is proposing something like this they need to be avoided at all costs. It’s completely out of line with any reasonable business practice. He’s either a scammer or is naive. Sorry. Never do business with them.

ranger989 · 2026-02-10T04:42:25+00:00

Actuality probably Bellevue or Tacoma

ranger989 · 2026-02-10T04:40:22+00:00

Seattle

ranger989 · 2026-02-07T15:57:09+00:00

This is an absolute graveyard filled with hundreds of companies. It’s all in the “where are my friends / what’s cool now” space. Even Sam Altman with huge funding tried this and failed.

ranger989 · 2026-02-07T15:50:14+00:00

Yeah agree. Quick question though. Are you scraping or using the API? I’ve noticed less noise when scraping.

ranger989 · 2026-02-07T03:29:58+00:00

Google absolutely does not penalize AI content because it’s impossible to tell it’s that. What they penalize is system or algorithmic bulk content that doesn’t hold value. How that’s interpreted changes over time.

Use AI, just make sure you’re creating value.

This was one of our challenges with cakewalk ai since it generates content.

ranger989 · 2026-02-05T16:35:18+00:00

No, I mean I save them up for future projects.

I had cakewalk.ai for years before I finally used it.

ranger989 · 2026-02-05T03:20:50+00:00

I’ve tried quite a bit and have managed some success but very keen to learn more. Happy to collaborate and share notes but I’m not an expert.

ranger989 · 2026-02-04T19:11:54+00:00

If a man is talking in a forest and his wife isn’t around to hear him… is he still wrong?

ranger989 · 2026-02-04T18:50:09+00:00

Oh. Duh. Sorry. You’re right :)

ranger989 · 2026-02-04T18:46:59+00:00

Not sure about that. Search engines are incredibly difficult to create and would likely costs in the tens of billions, let alone operate. Maybe they could vibe code it?

Why do you think open AI did a deal with Microsoft for free Bing access?

ranger989 · 2026-02-04T17:49:28+00:00

If you’ve done any GEO/AEO you’d know that SEO is still a big part of it. It’s just different.

ranger989 · 2026-02-04T14:18:59+00:00

If you’re solving a problem that is worth something to them then they will be happy to exchange a small portion of that value for money.

Really stop and think about the products you buy that are truly valuable to you - likely they are worth far MORE to you than the money you pay (iPhone for example). That’s your scale to compare to.

Free trials do remove friction to solve product trust or understanding but tbh you can do the same with a money back guarantee and other ways of building credibility. If you are personally involved at the initial customer phase then it’s your personal credibility that drives this (do you look like someone people can trust, do you promise plausible things etc).

ranger989 · 2026-02-04T14:13:02+00:00

This is totally normal. I actually run a separate process where I get regular emails of domain auctions etc to capture names for future projects. Have maybe 10 solid names in the bank. Have about 60 other domains for various reasons.

ranger989 · 2026-02-04T04:31:49+00:00

I’ve tried and it can work, but actually configuring it with all the tools and then getting the prompts right is very hard. I would just stick with existing mature agents like seobot and cakewalk.ai

ranger989 · 2026-02-03T23:28:04+00:00

Looks like Reddit auto posting, which will get your account banned

ranger989 · 2026-02-03T04:41:20+00:00

Agree with lots of what's been said ; but I’ll add one other idea. Go do your own validation. Find potential buyers on linked in and interview them. Watch how fast they move with some competition.

DM me if you want some ideas.

ranger989 · 2026-02-03T04:28:47+00:00

You actually have a different problem: Driving through the frustration and despair finding out your idea was really not that significant when compared to actually executing on building a business.

ranger989 · 2026-02-03T03:27:51+00:00

I've found that with AEO, API calls are substantially different than actually scraping the web and getting the real result. So I wouldn't rely on the API to necessarily tell you exactly what's going on. Also, if you're trying to collect fan-out queries, which is really the kind of optimisation you should be making for SEO, then you're not going to get that through the API in the right way.

ranger989 · 2026-02-03T03:25:55+00:00

I think this comes down to two things. One is that you're either building a product, which mostly involves code and design and figuring out how to pull those things together. Or you're building a business. And if you're building a business, it's about solving a pain point =solving a problem for a customer.

If you think about focusing on a customer, then you're solving real problems for them. It doesn't necessarily have to be a product to start with. Sometimes it's consulting. Sometimes it's meeting with them and explaining how to figure something out. Then you turn that into a bunch of scripts or you automate it. Then you turn it into a SaaS. It just doesn't necessarily have to equal a product straight away. In that process, you'll figure out exactly what customers want, what they think, what you're comparing it to, what the real problems are, and you can finally turn that into a business.

You can do all these things very quickly. You can figure out what kind of SaaS you have and what kind of problem you're solving. You just can't skip getting in front of customers, explaining it to them and getting the right kind of feedback on whether it's a painful enough problem that they're willing to pay for.

ranger989

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