What AEO changes
Discovery no longer ends on a results page. Answer engines synthesize a shortlist, explain trade-offs and cite evidence before a buyer visits a site.
How answers are built
Models combine learned knowledge, retrieval systems, fresh web pages and trusted sources. The exact blend varies, but clear entities and defensible evidence consistently matter.
A measurement model
Track inclusion, citation share, sentiment and competitor presence. Add first-party crawler and search data, then attach confidence to every trend.
Earning citations
Publish specific, verifiable claims. Make primary evidence easy to parse. Strengthen source relationships and keep important pages technically accessible.
Your first 90 days
Baseline the landscape, prioritize the highest-value questions, fix evidence gaps, and measure whether the answer changed beyond sampling noise.