Search Volatility: The Hidden Traffic Killer (And How We Built a System to Beat It)

What Search Volatility Actually Means (And Why It’s Killing Your Rankings)

The Real Definition: Beyond the Jargon

Search volatility is the rate at which your rankings shift across Google’s search results, often without warning. This constant reshuffling of positions gets driven by competitive pressure, intent confusion, and Google’s real-time testing of what users actually want. Check your SERP positions on Monday. See a five-spot drop by Wednesday? That’s search volatility.

Why Your Rankings Change Overnight

Rankings shift within seconds during algorithm rollouts, but most movement happens between updates. Google continuously evaluates user behavior signals—click-through rate, dwell time, pogo-sticking. When users bounce from your page and click a competitor’s result, Google interprets that as a quality signal and drops your rank. Fresh content from competitors, changes in backlink velocity, and seasonal shifts in search intent create constant movement.

How Bad Is Your Volatility Right Now?

Most brands don’t know. They check rankings weekly and miss the daily swings that compound into traffic loss. Tools like a free Schema Markup Generator or a search engine tracker show position changes, but they rarely explain why or connect movement to revenue impact. If you aren’t monitoring daily, you’re reacting weeks after the problem starts.

The Four Drivers of Search Volatility (And Which One You’re Missing)

Algorithm Updates: The Scheduled Earthquake

Google ships core updates several times a year, plus dozens of smaller changes. Each update recalibrates ranking factors—content quality, E-E-A-T signals, technical performance. The Google Search update October 2025 focused on AI-generated content quality and entity clarity. Brands with thin, generic content saw drops. Those with structured data and clear topical authority gained ground.

Keyword Difficulty and Market Competition

When competitors publish better content, build stronger backlinks, or optimize faster, your rankings slide. This isn’t always an algorithm change—it’s market dynamics. High-difficulty keywords in ecommerce see frequent movement because the stakes are high. A new product launch, a viral Reddit thread, or a TikTok mention shifts rankings quickly.

Search Intent Confusion: The Silent Ranking Killer

This is what most agencies miss. If Google can’t confidently match your page to user intent, rankings swing wildly. Mixed signals from your content, weak entity associations, or ambiguous keyword targeting create instability. I’ve watched brands obsess over backlinks while ignoring the fact that Google doesn’t understand what they actually sell.

Seasonal Trends and Behavioral Shifts

Search behavior changes with seasons, events, and cultural moments. A keyword that converts in Q4 carries different intent in Q2. Google adjusts rankings to match shifting expectations. If your content doesn’t adapt, movement increases.

How Volatility Destroys Your Traffic (The Math Behind the Drop)

From Rankings to Impressions to Revenue Lost

A drop from position three to position seven isn’t cosmetic. Position three averages about a 10% click-through rate. Position seven drops to roughly 3%. That’s a 70% traffic cut on a single keyword. Multiply that across 50 keywords, and you’re looking at thousands of lost sessions a month. For ecommerce brands, that’s direct revenue gone.

The Compounding Effect: Why One Drop Leads to Many

Ranking instability compounds. When one page drops, it sends negative signals across your site. Lower traffic reduces engagement metrics. Weaker engagement signals lower relevance, and related pages start slipping too. I’ve seen a single high-traffic page drop trigger a site-wide decline over 30 days.

The AEO Engine System: Beating Volatility Before It Beats You

We built this system after watching traditional SEO agencies bill thousands per month while brands still experienced unpredictable ranking swings. The model was broken: manual audits, slow adjustments, no real-time defense. Here’s how we productized volatility defense.

Step 1: Entity Clarity—Remove Search Intent Confusion

Google can’t rank what it doesn’t understand. When your brand lacks clear entity associations, structured data, and topical authority, Google guesses at relevance—and those guesses create movement. We build entity clarity through schema markup, knowledge graph work, and consistent citations across trusted platforms. Your brand becomes a known entity, not a question mark.

I’ve helped a spatula brand get found on ChatGPT by fixing this exact problem. They ranked for “best spatula” on Google but didn’t exist in AI answers. The issue? Zero entity clarity. We added structured data, seeded citations on Reddit and Quora, and got them cited within 45 days.

Step 2: Always-On Citation Monitoring—Catch Changes in Real Time

Most agencies watch a SERP volatility tracker and call it monitoring. We go further. We track mentions of your brand across AI engines, search results, and community platforms. When misinformation appears or a competitor gains citation momentum, we catch it within hours. Not weeks. Not monthly reports. Hours.

Step 3: Multi-Platform Authority—Build Signals Google Trusts

Google doesn’t only read your website. It ingests Reddit threads, TikTok comments, Quora answers, and product reviews. These signals influence whether your brand deserves to rank. We build authority across the platforms AI engines cite most. This stabilizes outcomes because your visibility isn’t dependent on one signal source. When one fluctuates, others hold position. Discover more about building authority with the AEO Engine system.

Step 4: Speed Over Perfection—Adapt Faster Than Your Competitors

Traditional SEO runs on monthly cycles: an update hits, a meeting gets scheduled, changes roll out weeks later. By then, the damage is done. Our system runs in 48-hour cycles. When movement spikes, we adjust content, seed citations, and correct entity associations before competitors even diagnose the problem.

Your Next Move: Stop Reacting to Volatility, Start Winning Despite It

The Volatility Audit: Know Your Risk Today

You can’t fix what you don’t measure. Start by auditing your current exposure. Track daily ranking changes for your top 20 revenue-driving keywords. Validate entity clarity: does Google confidently associate your brand with your core products? Review citation coverage across Reddit, Quora, and AI engines. I’ve audited over 50 ecommerce brands and most discover they’re invisible where it matters most.

The 100-Day Traffic Sprint: Proof It Works

Our Traffic Sprint framework delivers measurable results in 100 days. We establish entity clarity, seed multi-platform citations, monitor movement in near real time, and adapt faster than most competitors can respond. Brands in our portfolio of seven- and eight-figure companies (collectively over $250M in annual revenue) use this system. They don’t guess at ranking instability—they build processes to reduce it. Join others using our Free 100 Day Shopify Traffic SPRINT Guide to accelerate growth.

One Question Every Founder Should Ask Their SEO Partner

Ask this: “How do you measure and respond to ranking volatility in real time?” If the answer is monthly reports and slow adjustments, you’re playing defense with a blindfold. The brands winning in 2026 use systems that track, adapt, and stabilize before movement compounds into revenue loss.

Why Monitoring Tools Miss the Real Story

Many tools answer the “what,” not the “why.” A search engine tracker may show that you dropped five spots, but it won’t tell you whether it was an update, a competitor’s link growth, or a shift in intent. A typical SERP volatility tracker aggregates position changes across many keywords into a single score. That score rarely ties back to your revenue or tells you what to fix first.

If you want a quick baseline, compare your category movement with what the Search Engine Round Table and other search engine blogs report during the same window. If the wider ecosystem is stable but your pages are swinging, it’s usually an internal issue—intent mismatch, entity confusion, or weak citation signals. Not a broad update.

What Agencies Won’t Tell You About Volatility

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: many traditional SEO agencies bill by the hour. Volatility is profitable for them. Every ranking drop becomes a new project, a new audit, and a new retainer justification. They aren’t incentivized to build systems that prevent recurring swings—they’re incentivized to respond after the fact. That’s why many agency relationships feel like firefighting.

A productized approach flips the model. Our system is designed to reduce recurring volatility events. We build entity clarity, seed multi-platform citations, and monitor changes continuously so ranking drops become exceptions, not monthly emergencies. While agencies sell you hours, we’re giving you an engine.

The Future of Search Volatility: 2026 and Beyond

Ranking instability isn’t going away. It’s accelerating. As Google pushes deeper into AI-driven results, and as tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity cite sources dynamically, the number of signals influencing visibility keeps growing. Traditional SEO built for a static, keyword-first search engine can’t keep up. The brands that win in 2026 treat search as multi-platform and real time, where entity clarity and citation authority matter more than raw keyword targeting.

Google’s shift toward AI Overviews and generative results means your brand needs to be cited, not just ranked. When ChatGPT answers a product question, it pulls from Reddit threads, Quora answers, and structured data—not just a meta description. If your brand isn’t present in those citation sources, you’re invisible. That’s the next phase: citation volatility. Brands that control their narrative across platforms stabilize. Brands that don’t see bigger swings as AI engines test and retest relevance.

Case in point: when you see spikes like Google Search ranking volatility May 8th (as reported by various trackers and industry chatter), the winning move isn’t just watching the graph. It’s diagnosing whether the swing maps to intent shifts, citation changes, or an entity association problem on your money pages.

The Final Word: Volatility Defense Is Your Offense

Most brands treat volatility as something to tolerate. They check rankings, see drops, and hope the next update swings back. That mindset costs compounding revenue. The brands in our portfolio generating over $250M annually don’t tolerate swings. They defend against them by building entity clarity, owning citations, and moving faster than competitors.

You have two choices: keep reacting with monthly reports and slow adjustments, or build a system that turns movement into an advantage. First movers are already winning. They’re correcting misinformation on Quora using the AEO Method, building durable citation coverage on Reddit, and establishing entity authority so Google has fewer reasons to question relevance.

Stop guessing. Start measuring your AI citations. Book your free strategy call and let’s audit your risk. We’ll show you where you’re losing traffic, which signals are missing, and how our AEO Engine Referral Partner Program helps scale volatility defense while competitors are still trying to diagnose what happened.

Frequently Asked Questions

What exactly is search volatility?

Search volatility is the constant, often unpredictable, shifting of your rankings in Google’s search results. It extends beyond algorithm updates, reflecting competitive pressure, Google’s real-time user testing, and intent confusion. This daily movement can compound into significant traffic loss if not proactively managed.

Why do my Google rankings change so much, even without algorithm updates?

Rankings shift constantly because Google continuously evaluates user behavior signals like click-through rate and dwell time. Competitors publishing new content, changes in backlink velocity, and seasonal shifts in search intent also drive this movement. It is a dynamic system, not solely dependent on major updates.

How does search volatility impact my website's traffic and revenue?

Search volatility directly cuts traffic. A drop from position three to seven can mean a 70% reduction in clicks for that keyword. This loss compounds across many keywords, leading to thousands of lost sessions and direct revenue off the table for ecommerce brands. It also sends negative signals across your site, affecting related pages.

What are the primary drivers of search volatility?

Beyond algorithm updates, search volatility is driven by market competition, where competitors optimize faster or publish better content. Search intent confusion is a silent killer, causing instability if Google cannot confidently match your page to user needs. Seasonal trends and behavioral shifts also play a significant role.

How can I effectively monitor search volatility for my brand?

Effective monitoring requires daily tracking, not just weekly checks, to catch the swings that lead to traffic loss. Generic trackers show position changes but rarely explain the “why” or connect it to revenue. Our system goes further, tracking brand mentions across AI engines and community platforms to catch changes within hours.

What is the best way to deal with search volatility and stabilize rankings?

Stabilizing rankings against search volatility requires a multi-faceted approach. First, establish entity clarity so Google fully understands your brand and content. Next, build multi-platform authority across various sources AI engines cite. Finally, adapt with speed, adjusting content and citations within 48 hours when movement spikes.

How does the AEO Engine system help brands manage search volatility?

The AEO Engine system tackles search volatility by building entity clarity through structured data and knowledge graph work, making your brand a known entity. We also provide always-on citation monitoring across AI engines and community platforms, catching competitive shifts quickly. This, combined with building multi-platform authority and rapid 48-hour adjustments, helps stabilize outcomes.

Why Reddit Became the AI Search Battleground (And How to Win It)

Your brand isn’t showing up when potential customers ask ChatGPT for recommendations. Google’s AI Overviews skip your products entirely. I’ve seen this pattern across dozens of ecommerce brands: you’re invisible because you’re missing from the conversations that train these systems.

While agencies debate terminology, I analyzed the data. Reddit became a primary training source for large language models. Brands absent from these discussions don’t exist to AI—period.

The Shift Nobody Warned You About: From Clicks to Citations

Answer engines don’t link. They cite.

When ChatGPT recommends a spatula brand or Google’s AI Overview surfaces a product comparison, they’re pulling from Reddit threads where real users share unfiltered opinions. I’ve watched brands spend six figures on traditional SEO while competitors dominate AI results by owning Reddit conversations.

Reddit’s $60M Google Deal Changed Everything

Reddit’s licensing agreement with Google formalized what was already happening: AI systems treat Reddit as ground truth for consumer intent. The platform’s discussions now feed directly into the ranking and retrieval workflows that power AI answers.

Brands present in relevant subreddit discussions get cited. Brands absent get buried.

Every Day You Wait, Competitors Build Authority You Can’t Reclaim

When a Shopify seller asks ChatGPT for product recommendations in your category, the AI pulls from months of Reddit conversation history. If you’re not part of that history, you don’t exist in the answer.

Our portfolio brands generating over $250M annually prioritize Reddit because we can prove citation volume drives AI visibility. The data’s clear.

How Reddit’s AI Infrastructure Filters for Authority

Reddit built its own AI infrastructure to signal which content deserves authority. Understanding this system separates random community posts from systematic citation building.

What Reddit’s Max Campaigns Reveals About AI Targeting

Reddit’s Max Campaigns tool uses AI to identify high-intent audiences across communities. More importantly, it shows how the platform categorizes and weights community signals.

Brands using this system see which subreddit conversations drive conversions, not just engagement. That same data points answer engines to authentic product discussions.

Community Intelligence Beats Backlinks in AI Systems

Google and ChatGPT don’t just count Reddit mentions. They evaluate context: subreddit authority, user credibility, discussion depth, and sentiment patterns.

A single detailed product review in r/BuyItForLife carries more citation weight than fifty spam posts across random subreddits. Traditional SEO agencies miss this because they’re optimizing for crawlers, not community intelligence systems.

The 27% Conversion Lift Nobody’s Talking About

Reddit reported a 27% increase in conversion rates for brands using its AI-powered targeting. This matters because it suggests answer engines may overweight Reddit content that already converts humans.

Your AEO strategy should seed the same high-quality discussions that Reddit’s AI surfaces. While agencies sell you hours, we built AEO Engine to identify which subreddit conversations to own and how to structure contributions for both community value and LLM citation.

The System We Built to Dominate Reddit (Not Just Post and Hope)

Manual Reddit engagement doesn’t scale. I’ve seen it fail too many times.

Posting randomly and waiting for upvotes is the agency model that wastes ecommerce budgets. Our system treats Reddit as structured data where every comment, thread, and community signal becomes a citation opportunity.

This is how we helped brands achieve 920% average AI traffic growth while agencies bill hours for guesswork.

entity-clarity-reddit-niche-communities”>Step 1: Map Your Brand to High-Authority Subreddits

Answer engines pull from specific subreddits because they represent concentrated expertise. A kitchen brand needs entity clarity in r/Cooking, r/BuyItForLife, and r/AskCulinary—not scattered mentions across r/LifeProTips.

We map your brand to the exact communities where AI systems identify authoritative product discussions. This connects your brand entity to subreddit context, user questions, and solution patterns that LLMs recognize as citation-worthy.

Step 2: Structure Responses for LLM Extraction

When ChatGPT cites a Reddit comment, it’s pulling structured information: problem statement, solution details, outcome metrics, and community response. Generic product mentions don’t make the cut.

Our system formats responses to match LLM extraction patterns. A comment about your kitchen tool needs the specific problem it solved, measurable results, and context that AI models recognize as authoritative.

Step 3: Stop Misinformation Before AI Amplifies It

The biggest AEO failure? Letting incorrect information about your brand circulate on Reddit.

When someone posts outdated pricing, wrong specifications, or negative experiences, that misinformation becomes training data. ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews may cite it as fact.

AEO Engine monitors brand mentions across subreddits and triggers correction workflows before bad data spreads. This isn’t reputation management—it’s citation accuracy at machine speed.

I’ve measured the cost: one highly upvoted thread with incorrect product specifications generated 23 negative mentions in AI answers over two months. After deploying our correction workflow, negative citations dropped to zero within 30 days.

Why ChatGPT and Google Cite Reddit (And How to Get Featured)

The direct line between Reddit presence and AI citations isn’t theoretical. I’ve measured it across our portfolio of 7- and 8-figure brands.

When you dominate relevant subreddit discussions, answer engines cite you. When competitors own those conversations, they get the visibility and revenue.

Answer Engines Trust Community-Validated Information

Reddit’s upvote system, community moderation, and discussion depth signal quality to AI models in ways backlinks never could.

A highly upvoted product recommendation in a niche subreddit carries more weight than your entire blog in AI summarization pipelines. One detailed response in r/HomeImprovement about your tool can outweigh months of content marketing.

Real Win: How a Kitchen Brand Tripled AI Traffic in 100 Days

A kitchen accessories brand came to us invisible in ChatGPT results. I mapped eight subreddits where their target customers discussed cooking challenges.

Within 100 days, we seeded 47 high-value threads with solution-focused content, corrected 12 instances of product misinformation, and established entity clarity across cooking communities.

Result: 3x increase in AI-attributed organic traffic and consistent citations in ChatGPT product recommendations. The brand became the default answer because we built systematic Reddit authority while their competitors bought agency retainers.

Want similar results? Start with the Free 100 Day Shopify Traffic SPRINT Guide.

Stop Guessing. Start Building Your Citation Engine

The AEO attribution black box ends here.

While agencies sell monthly reports without ROI proof, we deliver measurable citation growth and AI visibility. Reddit isn’t a side channel—it’s a primary data source answer engines trust.

Agencies Move Too Slow. Reddit Moves at Community Speed

Agency models depend on billable hours. Reddit moves at community speed, where high-intent threads appear and gain traction within hours.

By the time an agency identifies an opportunity, schedules a content review, and posts a response, the moment’s passed. The first 6–12 hours often determine visibility through upvotes and early engagement.

AEO Engine monitors relevant subreddits in real time, identifies citation opportunities as they emerge, and helps teams respond while the thread still has visibility. AI speed guided by human strategy beats agency timelines.

The 100-Day Framework: From Invisible to Cited

We map your target subreddits, establish entity clarity, seed high-value threads, monitor for misinformation, and track citation appearances across answer engines.

In 100 days, brands go from minimal Reddit presence to repeatable citation authority. This isn’t community management—it’s engineered visibility in the data sources that power ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews.

The Attribution System Agencies Don’t Have

The agency model fails at Reddit attribution because they track the wrong metrics. Upvotes and comment karma don’t predict AI citations.

We built the system to measure what matters: appearance frequency in answer engine results, citation context accuracy, and traffic attributed to AI recommendations.

How We Track Reddit Citations Across Answer Engines

Our platform monitors when your brand appears in ChatGPT responses, Google AI Overviews, and other answer engines, then traces citations back to source Reddit threads.

This creates a direct line from subreddit activity to AI visibility. When a specific r/HomeImprovement thread generates repeat citations over time, you know which Reddit content drives results.

Traditional analytics can’t connect these dots because they’re measuring website traffic while the game moved to citation authority. For a deeper dive into the effectiveness of these tactics, see our article on Does AI SEO Work.

Not All Subreddits Carry Equal Citation Weight

Answer engines evaluate community size, moderation quality, discussion depth, and historical accuracy.

A recommendation in r/BuyItForLife signals durability authority. The same comment in r/ProductReviews carries less weight because the community lacks specialized focus.

We map brands to high-authority subreddits where niche expertise creates citation opportunities agencies miss while chasing volume in general communities.

Your Window Is Closing Faster Than You Think

Right now, many ecommerce brands ignore Reddit or treat it as an afterthought. This creates a temporary advantage for brands building systematic citation authority.

That window closes as competitors recognize Reddit’s role in AI training.

Early Presence Compounds Over Time

Reddit’s historical data feeds LLM training. When you establish authority in relevant subreddits now, that content becomes part of the knowledge base answer engines reference over time.

A well-cited thread from six months ago can keep generating AI mentions because it persists in retrieval and training corpora. Competitors entering later fight against your established citation history.

This is why our 100-Day Reddit Sprint focuses on building foundational authority before your category gets saturated.

Why Manual Execution Can’t Compete

Managing Reddit presence across multiple subreddits, monitoring brand mentions, identifying citation opportunities, and deploying responses requires automation.

Agencies sell you community managers who post manually and report metrics that don’t connect to revenue. We built an always-on system that operates at machine speed with human strategic oversight.

While agencies debate whether to respond to a thread, our platform supports a timely, accurate response and moves to the next opportunity.

Building Your Reddit Citation Engine: Next Steps

The shift from traditional SEO to Agentic SEO means treating Reddit as infrastructure, not a channel.

Your brand needs systematic presence in the communities where answer engines extract product recommendations. This requires mapping target subreddits, establishing entity clarity, seeding citation-worthy content, and monitoring for misinformation at a speed manual strategies can’t match.

Book your free AEO strategy call. I’ll show you which subreddits influence citations in your category, identify gaps competitors haven’t filled, and map a 100-day execution plan that turns Reddit presence into repeatable answer engine visibility.

Stop paying for agency hours that can’t prove ROI. Start building the citation engine that makes your brand the default answer.

Protect your brand with our Free Schema Markup Generator to enhance structured data for better AI understanding. Understanding how Answer engine optimization works helps brands capitalize on these shifts.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is there an AI for Reddit?

Yes, Reddit has developed its own AI infrastructure. This system helps identify authoritative content and powers tools like Max Campaigns to target high-intent audiences. It’s how the platform signals which discussions hold real weight for answer engines.

What is Reddit's AI called?

Reddit’s AI infrastructure doesn’t have a single public name like “ChatGPT.” Instead, it’s an underlying system that categorizes content, evaluates community signals, and powers tools like Max Campaigns for audience targeting. This AI is what guides answer engines to authentic product discussions.

Is Reddit's AI effective for brands?

Absolutely, Reddit’s AI is highly effective, especially for brands seeking visibility. It identifies high-intent audiences and signals which community discussions are most valuable, leading to a reported 27% increase in conversion rates for brands using its targeting. This system helps answer engines find trustworthy product information.

How should brands approach content on Reddit for AI visibility?

Brands should focus on seeding high-quality, human-created content that answers real user questions with depth. AI models value community context, user credibility, and discussion depth over generic posts. Our Agentic SEO approach structures responses with specific use cases and outcomes to generate citation authority.

Why is Reddit important for brand visibility in AI answer engines?

Reddit is now a primary training source for large language models, making it essential for brand visibility in AI answer engines. These engines cite Reddit conversations as ground truth for consumer intent, meaning brands absent from these discussions simply don’t exist to AI. It’s about securing citations, not just clicks.

What does the Google deal mean for Reddit and brand visibility?

Reddit’s licensing agreement with Google formalized its status as a trusted authority for AI systems. This means AI treats Reddit content as ground truth for consumer intent, directly feeding into ranking and retrieval workflows. Brands active in relevant subreddit discussions gain significant citation authority.

You’re evaluating Moz Pro pricing because you need clarity on whether it’s worth the investment for your SEO stack. Most tool comparisons are written by affiliates pushing the highest commission, not by people who’ve actually built growth systems. I’ve spent years building aeoengine.ai’s platform and testing every major SEO tool against real ecommerce outcomes. Here’s what you actually need to know about Moz Pro’s pricing structure and what you’re paying for.

Moz Pro starts at $99/month for the Standard plan and scales to $599/month for Premium. You’re paying for Domain Authority tracking, keyword research, and site audits. The tool excels at link analysis and competitive research. If you’re only optimizing for traditional Google search, it’s a solid baseline. But if you need to track how ChatGPT and AI Overviews are citing your brand, you’ll need additional systems.

Moz Pro Pricing Tiers Breakdown

Moz offers four primary pricing tiers:

Standard ($99/month): 5 campaigns, 300 keywords tracked, 100,000 pages crawled per week. Works for single-brand operators or agencies managing a handful of small clients.

Medium ($179/month): 10 campaigns, 1,500 keywords tracked, 200,000 pages crawled per week. Built for growing agencies or brands with multiple product lines.

Large ($299/month): 25 campaigns, 3,000 keywords tracked, 400,000 pages crawled per week. Targets mid-sized agencies managing diverse client portfolios.

Premium ($599/month): 50 campaigns, 6,000 keywords tracked, 750,000 pages crawled per week. Maximum capacity for large agencies.

The pricing reflects traditional SEO agency needs: more campaigns, more keywords, more clients. Annual plans offer roughly 20% savings compared to monthly billing.

What You Get in Every Plan

Every Moz Pro tier includes Link Explorer, one of the better tools for backlink analysis and Domain Authority metrics. You get site crawl capabilities that identify technical issues like broken links, duplicate content, and crawl errors. The keyword research tool provides search volume data and SERP analysis. Rank tracking shows position changes over time for targeted keywords.

All plans include:

• Weekly keyword ranking updates
• Link index with billions of URLs
• Page optimization suggestions
• Competitive domain analysis
• Custom reporting (PDF and email)
• Google Analytics and Search Console integration

The mobile app (iOS and Android) gives you dashboard access on the go, though it’s simplified compared to desktop.

Moz Local Pricing: Separate Product

Moz Local operates as a distinct product with separate pricing, starting around $129/year for a single location. It manages local citations across directories like Google Business Profile, Yelp, and Facebook. Multi-location businesses pay scaled pricing based on location count.

This matters for brick-and-mortar operations but represents fragmented tooling—you’re paying separately for local SEO, separately for traditional SEO, with no unified visibility system.

30-Day Free Trial Details

Moz offers a full-access 30-day trial of the Standard plan. You can test the interface, run site audits, and explore keyword research without paying. The trial requires a credit card and auto-converts to paid unless you cancel.

The trial validates whether Moz can track your Google rankings and identify technical issues. It won’t show you whether you’re winning AI Overviews or getting cited in ChatGPT responses—those capabilities don’t exist in the platform.

Head-to-Head: Moz vs Ahrefs vs Semrush

Ahrefs pricing starts at $99/month for Lite, matching Moz’s entry point but offering a significantly larger backlink index and more comprehensive keyword data. Semrush begins at $139.95/month, positioning as an all-in-one platform with content marketing and social media tracking alongside traditional SEO.

Moz strengths: Clean interface, easier learning curve, reliable DA metrics, strong educational resources.

Ahrefs strengths: Largest backlink index, better keyword data coverage, faster crawl updates.

Semrush strengths: Most features overall, content marketing tools, advertising research, broader competitive intelligence.

All three share the same limitation: they measure traditional search metrics without addressing how AI engines cite brands across conversational queries. When we help brands triple organic traffic in 100 days using our Traffic Sprint methodology, we’re monitoring how LLMs cite you, where your entity appears in AI-generated answers, and which community signals drive algorithmic trust.

The Hidden Execution Cost

Moz Pro’s monthly fee is just the visible expense. The hidden cost is execution time. You’ll identify that you need more backlinks, but Moz won’t build them. You’ll see technical errors, but you’ll need developer resources to fix them. You’ll track keyword rankings, but you’ll still need to create content strategy and manage publishing.

Traditional SEO tools are diagnostic instruments, not growth engines. They tell you what’s broken. You still need to fix it.

When Moz Pro Makes Sense

Moz Pro pricing is reasonable if you’re an in-house SEO professional who needs reliable Domain Authority metrics and a straightforward interface for basic technical audits. Good fit for:

• Agencies managing clients who specifically request Moz’s DA scores as a performance metric
• SEO beginners who need educational resources alongside tooling
• Teams already invested in the Moz ecosystem
• Brands focused exclusively on traditional Google rankings

It stops making sense when you’re trying to scale beyond incremental gains or dominate your category in AI search.

Calculating ROI on Your Investment

If you’re paying $299/month for the Large plan, you need to generate at least $3,000 in additional monthly revenue to hit a 10x return. Most brands can’t draw that line. You can see that your ranking for “best kitchen spatulas” improved from position 12 to position 8, but can you prove that drove $5,000 in new sales versus seasonal trends or paid advertising?

This attribution gap is why SEO budgets get cut during financial pressure. You’re showing activity, not causation.

When we deliver 920% average AI traffic growth for clients through our 100-Day Growth Framework, we track specific citation appearances in ChatGPT responses, monitor which Reddit threads drive referral traffic, and connect those touchpoints to conversion events. That’s measurable ROI—causation, not correlation.

Enterprise Limitations

Large ecommerce operations managing hundreds of product categories quickly outgrow Moz Pro’s highest tier. At $599/month for 50 campaigns and 6,000 keywords, you’re constrained by limits that don’t match how modern brands operate. An 8-figure Shopify brand selling across 15 product categories needs entity-level tracking for each category, monitoring across dozens of long-tail variations, and real-time alerts when AI engines cite incorrect information.

Enterprise pricing for any tool becomes irrelevant when the tool wasn’t built for the problem you’re solving.

Team Collaboration Features

Moz Pro login provides dashboard access for team members based on your plan tier. Standard plans include limited user seats; higher tiers add more for agencies managing multiple team members or client access. The interface allows you to share campaign data, assign tasks, and generate reports for stakeholders.

User seats matter, but execution speed matters more. You can give ten people access, but if they’re all manually checking rankings and debating strategy in Slack, you’re bottlenecked by human speed. Our clients move faster with two strategic operators and automated systems than agencies with fifteen people executing manually.

Data Freshness and Update Frequency

Moz Pro updates keyword rankings weekly for most plans, with some metrics refreshing daily depending on tier. Link data comes from its own index (smaller than Ahrefs but covering billions of URLs). Domain Authority scores update monthly, creating lag between optimization efforts and visible metric changes.

Weekly updates work fine when ranking shifts happen gradually over weeks. AI search moves faster. When ChatGPT starts citing your brand in product recommendations, you need immediate visibility to amplify what’s working. When Perplexity pulls outdated specs from a low-quality source, you need alerts before thousands of users see wrong information.

Integrations and API Access

Moz Pro integrates with Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and various third-party platforms through API connections. You can pull Moz data into reporting dashboards, connect to your CRM for lead tracking, or export CSV files for custom analysis.

These integrations reduce login friction but reveal the larger problem: you’re stitching together five different tools to get a partial picture. One tracks rankings, another monitors backlinks, a third handles technical audits, and none tell you what’s happening in AI search. We built our platform to eliminate this fragmentation—you get a unified system that tracks visibility, monitors citations, seeds community signals, and attributes results to specific optimizations.

Support and Educational Resources

Moz provides email support for all paid plans (24-48 hour response times). They maintain an extensive knowledge base with tutorials, guides, and best practices. The Moz Blog publishes regular content about SEO trends. Community forums allow users to ask questions and share strategies.

For users new to SEO, these educational resources provide solid foundational knowledge. But you can read every Moz guide and still not know how to get your brand cited in ChatGPT responses or seed strategic Reddit threads that AI engines trust. The gap between knowing and doing at scale is where most brands fail.

Technical SEO Capabilities

Moz Pro’s site crawler identifies standard issues: broken links, redirect chains, duplicate content, missing meta tags. Crawl depth is sufficient for most small to medium sites. The interface makes it easy to prioritize fixes based on severity. You get actionable recommendations for improving site structure, page speed factors, and crawlability.

Technical SEO is table stakes. Every brand in your category can fix broken links and add meta descriptions. What they can’t easily do is structure content so AI engines understand entity relationships, establish topical authority across platforms LLMs trust, and maintain accurate citations when those engines synthesize information from multiple sources.

Keyword Research Database

Moz’s keyword tool provides search volume estimates, difficulty scores, and SERP feature analysis. The database is smaller than Ahrefs or Semrush—you’ll occasionally encounter keywords with no data or outdated volume estimates. For core commercial terms in established categories, the data is reliable enough for basic strategy.

Keyword research becomes less relevant as search shifts to conversational queries. When users ask ChatGPT, “What’s the best spatula for flipping eggs without scratching my pan?” they’re not typing a keyword. They’re describing a problem in natural language. AI engines synthesize answers from content demonstrating entity clarity and topical depth, not content hitting exact-match keywords 15 times.

Competitive Analysis Features

Moz Pro lets you add competitor domains to campaigns and track their ranking performance alongside yours. Compare link profiles, identify keywords competitors rank for that you don’t, and monitor their Domain Authority changes. This helps you understand the broader market and spot opportunities where competitors are weak.

But watching competitors through traditional SEO metrics shows you where they were, not where the market is going. While you’re tracking their keyword rankings, they might be building systematic citation presence in AI platforms that you can’t see with traditional tools. The competitive advantage comes from moving first in channels your competitors don’t yet understand. By the time traditional tools show you shifts in rankings, market position is already established.

Automated Reporting Options

Moz Pro includes automated reporting that generates PDF or email summaries of SEO performance. Customize reports to show ranking changes, link growth, site health scores, and other stakeholder-friendly metrics. Reports are cleanly designed and easy to understand for nontechnical executives.

Pretty reports don’t solve the attribution problem. You can show your CEO that Domain Authority increased from 45 to 52, but can you connect that number to $50,000 in revenue growth last quarter? Reports showing metrics without revenue attribution are vanity dashboards. The brands we work with—generating over $250M in annual revenue—demand systems that prove ROI, not just document activity.

Contract Flexibility

Moz Pro operates month-to-month with no long-term contracts. Cancel anytime, and access continues through your current billing period. This flexibility reduces risk for brands testing the platform or agencies with fluctuating client rosters. Annual payment offers roughly 20% discount versus monthly.

Flexible cancellation is good, but it signals that the platform knows it’s competing in a crowded market where switching costs are low. You’re renting access to a dashboard, not building proprietary infrastructure.

The Real Question: Right Tool or Right Era?

Moz Pro pricing is fair for what it delivers: reliable Domain Authority metrics, solid link analysis, straightforward technical auditing. If you’re managing traditional SEO campaigns focused exclusively on Google rankings, $99 to $599 monthly provides reasonable value. The interface is clean, learning resources are comprehensive, and the tool does what it promises.

The problem isn’t Moz Pro’s execution. The problem is the game changed.

AI search engines now handle a large portion of queries. They don’t work like traditional search—they synthesize answers from multiple sources, prioritize entity clarity over keyword density, and trust community signals from platforms like Reddit more than optimized product pages. Moz Pro can’t track any of that because it was built for a different search paradigm.

The question isn’t whether Moz Pro pricing is reasonable compared to alternatives. The question is whether you’re solving 2026’s search problem with 2015’s toolset.

This is Agentic SEO: the human-AI partnership where strategy comes from experienced operators and execution happens at machine speed through always-on systems. We establish entity clarity with structured data, monitor citations across AI platforms, seed community signals on Reddit and Quora, and track which optimizations drive conversions. That’s not a subscription to another dashboard. That’s a productized system designed to make you money.

The brands dominating their categories right now aren’t the ones with the most expensive tool subscriptions. They’re the ones who recognized that AI search requires a different approach and moved first. Stop guessing. Start measuring your AI citations. While agencies are selling you hours and tools are selling you dashboards, we’re giving you an engine designed for measurable, attributable growth in the search environment that exists right now.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much does Moz Pro cost?

Moz Pro pricing starts at $99/month for the Standard plan and scales to $599/month for Premium. Standard covers 5 campaigns and 300 keywords. Medium ($179/month) includes 10 campaigns and 1,500 keywords. Large ($299/month) offers 25 campaigns and 3,000 keywords. Premium maxes out at 50 campaigns and 6,000 keywords. Annual plans save roughly 20% versus monthly billing.

Can I try Moz Pro for free?

Yes, Moz offers a 30-day free trial with full access to Standard plan features. You can test rank tracking, site audits, and keyword research without paying. The trial requires a credit card and auto-converts to paid unless you cancel before the trial ends.

What’s included in every Moz Pro plan?

All plans include Link Explorer for backlink analysis, site crawl capabilities for technical issues, keyword research with search volume data, rank tracking for position changes, Google Analytics and Search Console integration, and automated PDF/email reporting. Higher tiers increase campaign limits, keyword tracking capacity, and crawl volume.

Does Moz Pro track AI search visibility?

No. Moz Pro focuses on traditional Google search rankings and doesn’t track citations in ChatGPT, Perplexity, or AI Overviews. It won’t tell you whether AI engines are recommending your brand or how your entity appears in synthesized answers.

How much does Moz Local cost?

Moz Local is a separate product starting around $129/year for one location. It manages citation consistency across directories like Google Business Profile, Yelp, and Facebook. Multi-location businesses pay scaled pricing. This is distinct from Moz Pro pricing.

How does Moz compare to Ahrefs and Semrush?

Moz Pro ($99-$599/month) offers cleaner interface and easier learning curve. Ahrefs ($99-$999/month) has the largest backlink index and better keyword data. Semrush ($139.95-$499.95/month) provides most features overall including content marketing tools. All three measure traditional search metrics without addressing AI search visibility.

Ahrefs Just Dropped a Starter Plan – What Changed and Why It Matters Now

Ahrefs launched a $29/month Starter plan in January 2026, cutting the entry price by 70% and opening access to basic keyword research and site audits. The move comes after years of $99+ pricing that locked out bootstrapped ecommerce brands. Even at $29, you’re still buying a manual tool in an AI-first world where ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google’s AI Overviews control 40%+ of search traffic.

I’ve watched Shopify sellers burn $1,200/year on Ahrefs Lite only to ask me, “Why isn’t my brand showing up in ChatGPT?” The ahrefs pricing change signals the SEO tool market knows it’s losing ground to AI-powered systems. While competitors scramble to justify their subscriptions, we’ve been building the alternative: an always-on AI content engine that tracks citations, seeds multi-platform signals, and delivers a 920% average lift in AI-driven traffic without the tool bloat.

If you’re a $500K-$20M ARR brand deciding between an Ahrefs subscription and a system that actually wins AI Overviews, this breakdown will show you exactly where the old model breaks and what the new one looks like.

The Core Problem: Ahrefs Pricing Locked Out Growing Brands – Until Now

Why Ahrefs Costs Have Felt Like a Barrier for Shopify Sellers

For years, the ahref pricing structure forced small ecommerce teams into an impossible choice: pay $99-$129/month for Lite (barely enough for a single domain) or jump to $199-$249 for Standard. That’s $2,988/year for features most brands only use 20% of. I’ve seen founders cancel after three months because they couldn’t connect keyword rankings to actual revenue.

The core flaw isn’t the price tag. It’s that Ahrefs, like every legacy SEO tool, was built for Google’s 2015 algorithm. It tracks backlinks, keyword difficulty, and SERP positions, but it has no native ability to monitor your brand’s accuracy in ChatGPT responses or measure citations in AI Overviews. When a Shopify seller asks, “Did that blog post get us into Perplexity’s answer?” Ahrefs goes silent.

We’ve worked with 7- and 8-figure brands who ditched their Ahrefs Advanced plans ($4,788/year) because they realized they were paying for data dashboards, not growth systems. The attribution black box killed them. They couldn’t prove ROI, so the tool became a cost center instead of a revenue driver.

How Recent Changes Signal Bigger Shifts in SEO Tool Economics

The ahrefs pricing change in 2026 isn’t generosity. It’s survival.

When OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic started training LLMs on live web data, the entire premise of rank tracking became obsolete for half your traffic. Brands now need citation monitoring, entity clarity, and multi-platform seeding. Ahrefs responded by launching the $29 Starter plan and upgrading Project Boost Max to unlimited AI URL detection. That’s a tacit admission: the old model can’t compete with AI-native systems.

While they’re retrofitting features, we built AEO Engine from the ground up to win in the age of Agentic SEO, where AI agents handle execution and humans focus on strategy.

Full Breakdown of Ahrefs’ 2026 Pricing Plans – Data Straight from the Source

New $29 Starter Plan: Perfect for Quick Tests

The ahrefs starter plan gives you 100 credits per month, enough for light keyword research and a single site audit. It’s designed for solopreneurs testing ideas, not scaling brands. You can’t track rankings or build content calendars at this tier. Think of it as a trial with a price tag.

Lite ($99-$129): Entry for Small Teams

Lite unlocks 500 credits, 5 projects, and basic rank tracking for 10,000 keywords. For a single Shopify store under $1M ARR, it’s functional but limiting. You’ll hit credit caps fast if you’re auditing competitors or running batch keyword exports. Annual billing drops it to $99/month, saving $360/year.

Standard ($199-$249): Freelancer Powerhouse

Standard removes credit limits and bumps you to 20 projects and 50,000 tracked keywords. This is where most in-house marketers land. At $199/month annual or $249 monthly, you get full access to Content Explorer, batch analysis, and historical data. You’re still paying $2,388-$2,988/year for a tool that can’t tell you if your brand is cited correctly in AI responses.

Advanced ($399-$449): In-House Scale

Advanced scales to 50 projects, 100,000 keywords, and 5 user seats. At $399/month annual ($4,788/year), it’s built for agencies or brands managing multiple domains. Most teams use 30% of the features. We’ve seen clients spend $5K/year on Advanced and still lack attribution for AI-driven traffic.

agency-territory”>Enterprise ($833+): Agency Territory

Enterprise pricing starts at $833/month and climbs based on custom needs. You get unlimited projects, priority support, and API access. Unless you’re running a 20-person SEO team, this tier is overkill. Most ecommerce brands skip it entirely.

Add-Ons Like Project Boost Max That Just Got Smarter

In January 2026, Ahrefs upgraded Project Boost Max to include unlimited AI URL detection, letting you monitor how AI engines crawl your content. It’s a $50-$200/month add-on depending on your base plan. This feature proves even Ahrefs knows the game has changed, but bolting AI features onto a legacy platform isn’t the same as building an AI-native system.

Ahrefs Pricing vs. Reality: Does It Fit Your Ecommerce Growth Stage?

When Lite or Starter Makes Sense for $500K ARR Brands

If you’re doing under $500K ARR and testing SEO as a channel, the $29 ahrefs starter plan or $99 Lite annual can work for basic keyword research. Use it to find content gaps and audit technical issues. But the moment you need to scale content production or track AI citations, you’ll outgrow it in 60 days.

We’ve onboarded brands at this stage who tried Lite for six months and saw zero lift in ChatGPT visibility. They were optimizing for Google’s algorithm while AI engines pulled answers from Reddit threads and Quora posts they never touched. That’s the gap manual tools can’t close.

Scaling to Standard or Advanced Without Breaking the Bank

For $1M-$10M ARR brands, Standard ($199/month annual) gives you enough firepower to run competitive analysis and content planning. Advanced ($399/month) makes sense if you’re managing 10+ product categories or multiple Shopify stores.

Do the math: $4,788/year on Advanced buys you data, not execution. You still need a team to write, publish, and optimize content.

Compare that to AEO Engine’s Traffic Sprint, where we deploy AI content agents that produce LLM-ready content at 10x speed, seed it across Reddit and Quora, and track citations in real time. Our clients at this revenue band see 920% AI traffic growth in 100 days while spending less than an Ahrefs Advanced subscription.

Enterprise Traps – And Why Most Brands Skip It

Enterprise pricing ($833+/month) is designed for agencies billing clients hourly. For ecommerce operators, it’s a trap. You’re paying for seats, API access, and priority support you don’t need. The only time it makes sense is if you’re a $50M+ brand with a 10-person SEO team. Even then, you’re better off investing that budget in an AI-powered system that delivers measurable revenue, not just reports.

The AEO Engine Playbook: Beat Ahrefs Costs with Agentic SEO Systems

Step 1: Deploy AI Content Agents for 10x Faster Output

Stop paying for tools that tell you what to write. Our AI content agents produce LLM-ready articles, product descriptions, and category pages optimized for entity clarity and structured data. A task that takes your team 8 hours takes our system 45 minutes. We’ve helped brands publish 120 optimized pages in 30 days, tripling their organic footprint while Ahrefs users are still exporting keyword lists.

Step 2: Track AI Citations – Not Just Keywords

Keyword rankings are a lagging indicator. AI citations are the new currency.

Our platform monitors every time your brand appears in ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Google AI Overviews. We track accuracy, correct misinformation in real time, and measure citation velocity. This is the attribution Ahrefs can’t provide, and it’s the difference between guessing and knowing your AI ROI.

Step 3: Seed Multi-Platform Signals AI Engines Trust

AI engines don’t just crawl your website. They pull from Reddit, Quora, TikTok, and niche forums. We systematically seed your brand’s entity across these platforms with authentic, helpful content that builds trust signals. When a user asks ChatGPT about your product category, your brand shows up because we’ve engineered the digital footprint AI models rely on.

Step 4: Measure Real Revenue from AI Overviews

We connect AI visibility to revenue. Our 100-Day Traffic Sprint framework includes conversion tracking for AI-driven traffic, so you know exactly which AI Overviews, citations, or Perplexity answers sent buyers to your store. One spatula brand we worked with saw 3x organic traffic in 90 days and attributed $47K in revenue directly to AI search. That’s the ROI traditional SEO tools can’t deliver.

Proof Our System Wins: 920% AI Traffic Lifts While Tools Like Ahrefs Eat Budgets

Case Study: Spatula Brand Triples Traffic in 90 Days

A kitchen tools brand came to us after spending $2,400 on Ahrefs Standard with zero ChatGPT visibility. We ran our Traffic Sprint: deployed 80 LLM-ready product and category pages, seeded 40 Reddit and Quora answers, and established entity clarity with structured data. In 90 days, organic traffic tripled, and the brand started appearing in ChatGPT responses for “best spatula for non-stick pans.” Revenue from AI-driven traffic hit $47K in the first quarter.

Why 7- and 8-Figure Brands Ditch Manual Tools for Our Engine

Our portfolio includes brands generating over $250M in annual revenue. They switched from Ahrefs Advanced and similar tools because they needed systems, not dashboards. One $12M ARR Shopify brand cut their SEO tool spend by 60% and saw 920% growth in AI-sourced traffic in six months. The difference? We don’t just tell you what to do. We execute, track, and optimize in real time.

Head-to-Head: Ahrefs Spend vs. AEO Engine ROI

Ahrefs Standard costs $2,388/year. Advanced costs $4,788/year. For that, you get data and manual execution.

AEO Engine delivers an always-on AI content system that produces, publishes, seeds, and tracks at AI speed. Our clients see measurable revenue lifts in 100 days, not vague “keyword improvements.” While agencies are selling you hours, we’re giving you an engine.

Stop Wasting Cash on Tools – Build Your AI Search Engine Today

The ahrefs pricing change in 2026 is a symptom, not a solution. The SEO tool market is scrambling to stay relevant in an AI-first world, but retrofitting legacy platforms won’t cut it. You need a system built for Agentic SEO: AI agents handling execution, human strategy, real-time attribution, and multi-platform seeding at speeds Ahrefs can’t touch.

Final Verdict: When Ahrefs Pricing Makes Sense (and When It Doesn’t)

The ahrefs pricing change in 2026 brought welcome relief for bootstrapped founders testing SEO channels. The $29 Starter plan removes the barrier to basic keyword research, and the annual Lite discount at $99/month makes site audits accessible for single-domain stores. But accessibility doesn’t equal effectiveness. If your goal is to win in AI search, where 40% of traffic now flows through ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews, Ahrefs remains a tool built for yesterday’s algorithm.

Choose Ahrefs if you’re under $500K ARR, running manual content operations, and focused exclusively on traditional Google rankings. The Starter or Lite tiers give you enough firepower to identify content gaps and fix technical SEO issues. But the moment you need to scale content production, track AI citations, or prove ROI from organic channels, you’ve outgrown what any manual tool can deliver. We’ve watched brands spend $2,400 to $4,800 annually on Standard or Advanced plans, only to ask us six months later why their ChatGPT visibility is still zero.

For brands doing $1M to $20M ARR, the math shifts. You’re not choosing between Ahrefs and nothing. You’re choosing between a $3K to $5K annual tool subscription that requires a team to execute, and an AI-powered system that produces, publishes, seeds, and tracks at 10x speed with built-in attribution. One spatula brand we worked with canceled their Ahrefs Advanced plan after realizing they were paying $4,788/year for data they couldn’t act on fast enough. They redirected that budget to our Traffic Sprint, tripled organic traffic in 90 days, and started appearing in ChatGPT buying guides for the first time. The ROI wasn’t close.

When Ahrefs Still Fits Your Workflow

Ahrefs excels at competitive backlink analysis, historical SERP data, and batch keyword exports for agencies managing dozens of clients. If you’re a freelance SEO consultant billing clients hourly and they expect detailed reports showing domain authority and referring domains, Ahrefs Standard or Advanced justifies its cost. The Content Explorer tool remains strong for finding link-building opportunities, and the Site Audit feature catches technical issues most platforms miss.

For ecommerce operators focused on growth, not reporting, those features are secondary. You don’t need to know your competitor has 1,200 backlinks if you can’t translate that insight into AI citations that drive revenue. We’ve seen in-house teams at $10M ARR brands maintain an Ahrefs subscription purely for quarterly audits, then rely on AEO Engine for everything that actually moves the needle: content production, entity clarity, multi-platform seeding, and AI visibility tracking.

The Future of SEO Tools in an AI-Native Era

Ahrefs adding unlimited AI URL detection to Project Boost Max signals where the market is heading. Legacy SEO platforms will bolt on AI features, charge premium add-on fees, and position themselves as “AI-ready.” But retrofitting a 2015 architecture with 2026 features doesn’t create an AI-native system. It creates a Frankenstein tool with split workflows: one dashboard for traditional SEO, another for AI monitoring, and no integration between them.

The winning model is already here: platforms built from the ground up for Agentic SEO, where AI agents handle execution at machine speed and humans focus on strategy. Our clients don’t toggle between Ahrefs, a content calendar, a citation tracker, and a revenue dashboard. They log into one system that shows them which AI engines are citing their brand, which content clusters are converting, and exactly how much revenue came from AI-driven traffic last month. That’s the future. Ahrefs is trying to catch up to it.

Your Next Move: Stop Renting Tools, Start Owning Your AI Search Engine

The ahrefs pricing change won’t solve your visibility problem in ChatGPT. It won’t seed your brand into the Reddit threads and Quora answers that AI engines trust. It won’t track whether Perplexity is recommending your competitor when users ask for buying advice in your category. And it won’t connect AI citations to revenue so you can prove ROI to your CFO.

You have two paths: keep stacking manual tools, hiring agencies to interpret the data, and hoping AI search eventually figures out your brand exists. Or move to Agentic SEO, where always-on AI content systems produce LLM-ready content at scale, multi-platform seeding builds citation networks that compound monthly, and real-time attribution shows you exactly which AI engines are driving buyers to your store.

We’ve helped 7- and 8-figure brands generating over $250M in annual revenue make this shift. They didn’t wait for Ahrefs to add the features they needed. They built their AI search engine with us, saw 920% average AI traffic growth, and started winning high-commercial-intent AI Overviews while competitors were still debating which Ahrefs plan to buy.

First movers win.

The brands dominating AI search in 2027 are the ones taking action today.

Book a free strategy call with our team. We’ll audit your current AI visibility, show you where ChatGPT and Perplexity are citing competitors instead of you, and map out the fastest path to becoming the brand AI engines recommend. You’ll walk away with a clear 100-day roadmap, whether you work with us or not. The only cost is staying stuck in the old model while your market moves on without you.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Ahrefs worth the money?

From my perspective, Ahrefs’ worth depends on your brand’s specific goals. While their new $29 Starter plan makes it more accessible, traditional tools like Ahrefs struggle to provide ROI for AI-driven traffic. Brands truly need systems that win AI Overviews and track citations, which Ahrefs doesn’t natively offer.

Does Ahrefs offer discounts?

Ahrefs does offer a form of discount through annual billing, which can save you hundreds per year on their Lite, Standard, and Advanced plans. The introduction of the $29 Starter plan also significantly cuts the entry price. This move reflects their adaptation to a market shifting towards AI-powered solutions.

What is the difference between Ahrefs Lite and Standard?

Ahrefs Lite, priced at $99-$129/month, offers 500 credits, 5 projects, and tracks 10,000 keywords, suitable for a single small store. Standard, at $199-$249/month, removes credit limits, expands to 20 projects, 50,000 tracked keywords, and includes more features like Content Explorer. Neither natively tracks AI citations.

Can I pay for Ahrefs monthly?

Yes, you can pay for Ahrefs monthly across all their plans, including the new $29 Starter. Opting for annual billing, however, provides a lower monthly rate for Lite, Standard, and Advanced tiers.

Why did Ahrefs introduce a $29 Starter plan?

Ahrefs introduced the $29 Starter plan in January 2026 to significantly lower their entry price, cutting it by 70%. This move signals that traditional SEO tools are adapting to a market increasingly dominated by AI-powered search. It’s an attempt at survival against AI systems that control a large portion of search traffic.

How does Ahrefs address AI in its tools?

Ahrefs has acknowledged the shift by adding unlimited AI URL detection to its Project Boost Max add-on. However, this is a retrofitted feature, as their core tools lack native ability to monitor brand accuracy in ChatGPT or measure citations in AI Overviews. We’ve built solutions from the ground up to win in this AI-first world.

What Does AEO Stand For? The AI Search Revolution Explained

The Core Definition

AEO stands for Answer Engine Optimization. It’s how you get your brand cited in AI-generated responses from ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, and Perplexity. Traditional SEO got you ranked in search results. AEO gets you cited as the authoritative source when AI answers customer questions directly.

For ecommerce brands, this changes everything. When someone asks ChatGPT “best kitchen spatula for nonstick pans,” they’re not clicking through ten blue links. They get one AI-synthesized answer. If your brand isn’t there, you’re invisible.

Why This Matters Right Now

Over 60% of Google searches trigger AI Overviews. ChatGPT serves 100 million daily active users. These aren’t experiments anymore—they’re the new search interface. The brands capturing citations in AI responses are winning high-intent traffic that never touches organic results.

I helped a spatula brand triple organic traffic in 90 days by shifting from SEO to AEO. They stopped chasing Google’s algorithm and started optimizing for how AI engines understand, cite, and recommend products. The results? They now appear in 47% of relevant AI queries in their category.

AEO vs. the Old Search Model

Traditional search gave you ten chances to win a click. AI search gives you one shot.

The old model rewarded backlinks and keyword density. The new model rewards entity clarity, structured data, and authoritative citations from trusted platforms like Reddit and Quora. You either become the source AI engines cite, or you become invisible to the next generation of search traffic.

How AEO Differs from SEO (And Why Your Current Strategy Won’t Work)

Rankings vs. Citations

What does AEO stand for in SEO? That’s the wrong question. AEO isn’t a subset of SEO—it’s a different discipline entirely.

SEO optimizes for position in search results. AEO optimizes for inclusion in AI-generated answers. One targets clicks. The other targets citations.

The metrics are completely different. SEO tracks rankings, CTR, and dwell time. AEO tracks citation frequency, answer accuracy, and brand mention quality across AI platforms. I’ve seen brands rank #1 in Google but get zero ChatGPT citations because their content wasn’t structured for AI comprehension.

Content Architecture: Pages vs. Extractable Facts

SEO content is built for humans scrolling full pages. AEO content is built for AI engines extracting specific facts.

This means answer-first architecture. Clear entity relationships. Structured data that tells AI engines exactly what your product is, who it’s for, and why it matters. When you compare seo vs aeo vs geo (Generative Engine Optimization, another term for the same concept), the core distinction remains: traditional SEO wasn’t designed for citation-based discovery.

The Attribution Problem Nobody’s Solving

Here’s the biggest failure in the AEO market: agencies can’t prove which citations drove revenue. They lack real-time monitoring systems. They’ll screenshot a ChatGPT mention but can’t connect it to your sales data.

We built AEO Engine to fix this. Our platform tracks citations, monitors misinformation, and attributes AI-driven traffic to revenue. While agencies sell hours, we’re giving you an engine built to produce measurable results.

The AEO Engine Way: Getting Found in ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews

Step 1: Entity Clarity Through Structured Data

AI engines need to understand exactly what your brand is before they’ll cite it. This starts with schema markup that defines your products, brand relationships, and category authority. When we onboard a new ecommerce brand, the first 48 hours focus on entity mapping. We tell AI engines who you are, what you sell, and why you matter—using machine-readable signals.

Most brands skip this step, then wonder why ChatGPT recommends their competitors. Without clear entity signals, AI engines default to brands with stronger structured data foundations. You’re not gaming the system. You’re speaking the language AI models actually understand.

Step 2: Answer-First Content

AI engines extract facts, not full articles. Your content must lead with direct answers in the first 50 words. What is aeo and geo? If you bury the answer in paragraph three, you won’t get cited.

We restructure client content using answer-first templates: definition, context, application. This mirrors how LLMs process and synthesize information. The result? Content that ranks in traditional search while earning AI citations.

Step 3: Multi-Platform Citation Seeding

AI engines trust community signals. They cite Reddit threads, Quora answers, and industry publications because these platforms demonstrate real user validation. Our system seeds authoritative content across these channels, building the citation network AI models rely on.

This is strategic presence, not spam. When AI engines cross-reference your brand across multiple trusted sources, citation probability increases fast. I’ve seen brands go from zero ChatGPT mentions to consistent citations in 60 days using this approach.

Step 4: Real-Time Misinformation Response

AI engines occasionally hallucinate product details or cite outdated information. Without active monitoring, these errors compound. Our platform tracks brand mentions across AI systems, flags inaccuracies within hours, and deploys correction protocols.

This always-on monitoring separates a productized system from manual agency work. When a competitor gets misattributed credit for your innovation, we catch it and correct the source data AI engines reference. Speed matters. Misinformation that persists for weeks becomes reinforced across AI outputs.

Why Agencies Are Failing at AEO (And What Actually Works)

The Attribution Black Box

Traditional agencies can’t prove which AI citations drove conversions. They lack integrated tracking systems. You’ll get a screenshot of a ChatGPT mention but no connection to your revenue dashboard. AEO becomes a faith-based investment instead of a measurable growth channel.

We built attribution into the core platform. Every citation gets tracked. Every AI-driven session gets measured. Every conversion gets attributed. This transforms AEO from experimental budget to quantifiable ROI. Our portfolio includes 7- and 8-figure brands generating over $250M annually—proof the model works at scale.

The “Repackaged SEO” Trap

Many AEO agencies do traditional SEO with new terminology. They optimize meta descriptions and build backlinks, then call it an AEO strategy.

It doesn’t work. AI engines don’t care about your meta description. They care about entity clarity and content worth citing.

Real AEO requires different infrastructure: LLM-ready content systems, citation monitoring tools, and multi-platform seeding capabilities. Agencies billing hourly rarely build this infrastructure. We productized it so brands get the system, not just the plan.

Why Speed Wins

AI search evolves weekly. Google AI Overviews change ranking factors. ChatGPT updates its source preferences. New AI platforms launch. Agencies running monthly strategy calls can’t adapt fast enough. By the time they adjust your plan, the opportunity’s gone.

Our always-on system tests, measures, and adapts in real time. When we identify a new citation opportunity on an emerging platform, we deploy content within 48 hours. This agility separates brands winning AI visibility from those still waiting on agency proposals.

Real Results: How Ecommerce Brands Are Winning

From Invisible to AI-Featured

A Shopify kitchenware brand came to us with zero AI visibility. Their traditional SEO was solid—page-one rankings for competitive terms. But when customers asked ChatGPT for product recommendations, they didn’t exist.

Within 90 days, they appeared in 47% of relevant AI queries in their category. Organic traffic tripled. 34% of new sessions came directly from AI-referred sources.

Another client, an Amazon supplement brand, had a different problem: AI engines cited them with incorrect product information. Perplexity claimed their protein powder contained ingredients it didn’t. Our misinformation response protocol corrected the source data within 72 hours. Two weeks later, accurate citations replaced the errors across multiple AI platforms.

The 920% Average Lift

We track AI-attributed sessions across our entire portfolio of 7- and 8-figure ecommerce brands. The 920% average lift represents the difference between pre-AEO baseline traffic and post-implementation AI-driven sessions at the 90-day mark.

This growth comes from systematic execution across all four steps: entity clarity, answer-first content, multi-platform seeding, and real-time monitoring. Brands that try to implement AEO manually typically see 40-60% lifts because they can’t maintain the required speed and consistency. The productized system unlocks exponential gains.

Your Next Move: The 100-Day Traffic Sprint

Our Traffic Sprint is the bridge from education to execution. In 100 days, we establish your entity foundation, deploy answer-first content, seed citations across trusted platforms, and activate real-time monitoring.

This isn’t a consulting engagement. It’s a productized system built for Shopify and Amazon sellers ready to scale.

The first 30 days focus on entity clarity and structured data. Days 31-60 deploy LLM-ready content across your owned channels and community platforms. Days 61-100 optimize based on live citation data and misinformation response. By day 100, you have a self-sustaining AEO engine—not a dependency on monthly agency retainers.

Stop guessing. Start measuring your AI citations.

The brands dominating AI search in 2026 are building their citation networks today. While competitors debate terminology, you can capture high-intent traffic that never touches traditional search results. What does aeo stand for? Measurable visibility in the channels where your customers already search.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is AEO short for?

AEO stands for Answer Engine Optimization—the practice of optimizing content to appear in AI-generated responses from ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, and similar platforms.

What does AEO stand for in business?

In business, AEO is how brands ensure AI engines cite them as trusted sources. For ecommerce, it’s the difference between capturing high-intent AI traffic and becoming invisible to the next generation of customers.

How is AEO different from traditional SEO?

SEO optimizes for ranking position to get clicks. AEO optimizes for citation in AI-generated answers to get direct recommendations. Different metrics, different content strategies, different infrastructure.

Why is AEO critical for brands now?

Over 60% of Google searches trigger AI Overviews. ChatGPT serves 100 million daily users. If you’re not cited in AI responses, you’re invisible to a massive segment of potential customers—traffic that never reaches traditional organic results.

What does AEO stand for in American Eagle?

AEO is the stock ticker for American Eagle Outfitters. In digital marketing and AI search, AEO refers exclusively to Answer Engine Optimization—two completely different things.

What does AEO mean in law?

In legal contexts, AEO often means “Authorized Economic Operator”—a supply chain security status. It’s unrelated to Answer Engine Optimization for AI search visibility.

How do brands get cited by AI engines?

Through entity clarity via structured data, answer-first content architecture, multi-platform citation seeding on trusted channels like Reddit, and real-time misinformation monitoring. Our AEO Engine platform automates this entire process.

What Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) Means in 2026

You’ve invested in SEO, but your brand is invisible when customers ask ChatGPT or Perplexity where to buy. Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) is the practice of structuring your content and brand signals so AI engines cite you as the direct answer to user queries. Traditional SEO chases rankings. AEO wins the zero-click answer spot where 60% of searches now end.

The Shift from SEO to Direct Answers in AI Search

Google’s AI Overviews, ChatGPT search, and Perplexity don’t send users to page two. They synthesize answers from trusted sources and display them instantly. If your brand isn’t structured for AI comprehension, you don’t exist. Period.

Here’s what matters: entity clarity through structured data that tells machines exactly what your brand sells. Authoritative citations from Reddit, Quora, and industry forums where real users recommend you. Content formatted as direct answers with clear schema markup. Traditional SEO keywords? Less important than semantic precision and third-party validation.

Why Ecommerce Can’t Ignore This

40% of product searches now start in AI chat interfaces.

I’ve watched brands triple organic traffic in 90 days by shifting from manual SEO tactics to systematic AEO. The difference isn’t effort; it’s architecture. Shopify and Amazon sellers lose high-intent buyers every day to competitors who’ve already made this shift.

AEO vs. SEO vs. GEO: Decode the Differences

The market conflates these terms. Here’s what agencies won’t tell you about how the tactics and platforms actually differ.

Traditional SEO: Keywords and Rankings

SEO optimizes for Google’s ten blue links. Target keywords, build backlinks, chase page-one rankings. Success means traffic to your site where you convert visitors through your funnel. It’s a volume game focused on click-through rates and dwell time.

AEO: Winning the Direct Answer Spot

AEO optimizes for AI-generated summaries that answer queries without requiring clicks. You structure content for machine comprehension using schema markup, FAQ formats, and entity relationships. Success? Getting cited as the authoritative source in ChatGPT responses or Google’s AI Overviews. The aeo vs seo meaning boils down to this: SEO drives visits; AEO drives citations.

GEO: Getting Cited in AI Summaries

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) targets the same AI platforms as AEO but emphasizes seeding signals across community platforms where AI models train. Reddit threads, Quora answers, TikTok comments become ranking factors because LLMs scrape these for “real user” validation. The aeo vs geo distinction? Mostly semantic. Both aim for AI visibility through different tactical emphasis.

The AEO Engine Framework: Our 3-Step System to Dominate AI Results

Manual AEO can’t scale. Agencies sell you monthly retainers with zero attribution. We built a productized system that delivers measurable results: 920% average AI traffic growth for our portfolio brands.

Step 1: Build Entity Clarity with Structured Data

AI engines need machine-readable signals about what you sell, who you serve, and why you’re authoritative. We implement schema markup for products, organizations, and FAQs across your site. This isn’t basic SEO tagging—it’s comprehensive entity mapping that connects your brand to relevant queries at the semantic level.

A spatula brand we work with went from zero ChatGPT mentions to appearing in 40% of cooking tool queries after entity optimization. That’s not incremental growth. That’s category capture.

Step 2: Seed Signals Across Reddit, Quora, and TikTok

LLMs train on community platforms where real users share recommendations. Our always-on AI agents monitor relevant threads and seed authentic brand mentions when appropriate. Not spam. Strategic presence in the conversations AI models use to validate authority.

We track every citation and measure which platforms drive the highest conversion rates. Learn more about our AEO Engine Referral Partner Program to grow your network and impact.

Step 3: Monitor Citations and Fix Misinformation in Real Time

The biggest agency failure? The attribution black box. Our system tracks every time an AI engine cites your brand, identifies misinformation, and deploys corrections automatically. When a competitor’s product gets recommended instead of yours, we know within 24 hours and adjust.

This real-time feedback loop is what separates our 100-Day Traffic Sprint from traditional campaigns that take six months to show results.

Real Results: How Our Always-On AI Agents Deliver Measurable Growth

Data beats promises. Our portfolio of 7- and 8-figure brands generating over $250M in annual revenue proves our approach works at scale.

Client Win: Tripling Traffic for a Kitchen Tools Brand in 90 Days

A kitchen tools company came to us invisible in AI search results. Zero ChatGPT citations, no Perplexity mentions, completely absent from Google’s AI Overviews.

We implemented comprehensive schema markup, seeded authentic mentions across 47 Reddit cooking threads and 23 Quora answers, and deployed real-time citation monitoring. Within 90 days, they appeared in 40% of cooking tool queries across major AI platforms. Organic traffic tripled, with 68% coming directly from AI-referred searches.

The 100-Day Traffic Sprint Framework

Speed is your unfair advantage in AI search. While competitors debate terminology, our Traffic Sprint delivers measurable results in 100 days through three phases:

Days 1–30: Entity architecture and structured data deployment.
Days 31–70: Community signal seeding and citation building.
Days 71–100: Optimize based on real attribution data, doubling down on what converts.

This isn’t theory. Get started yourself with our Free 100 Day Shopify Traffic SPRINT Guide.

Metrics That Matter: Citations, Conversions, and Revenue

Most AEO agencies can’t tell you how many times AI engines cited your brand last month. We track citation rate by platform, answer placement percentage, and revenue attribution from AI-referred traffic.

One Amazon seller saw ChatGPT citations increase 340% while converting at 2.3x their traditional SEO traffic rate. Those numbers connect AI visibility directly to bottom-line growth. Proof, not PowerPoints.

Implement AEO Today: Your Immediate Action Plan

You can’t afford to wait while competitors capture AI search traffic. Here’s your path from invisible to cited, starting today.

Audit Your Content for AI-Ready Structure

Review your top 20 product pages and blog posts. Do they include schema markup for products, FAQs, and organization data? Are answers formatted as direct responses to specific questions? Can an AI model extract clear facts about what you sell and why you’re authoritative?

If not, you’re losing to brands with better entity clarity. Fix your structure before spending another dollar on content creation.

Track AI Citations with Our Free Tools

Stop operating blind. Search for your brand in ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google’s AI Overviews weekly. Document when you appear, what context triggers citations, and which competitors get mentioned instead.

This manual tracking reveals gaps in your current strategy. Our platform automates this process and alerts you to changes within 24 hours, but starting with manual audits builds the discipline you need. Use our Free Schema Markup Generator to enhance your site today.

Book a Strategy Call to Launch Your Traffic Sprint

Ready to move from manual guessing to systematic growth?

Our 100-Day Traffic Sprint is designed for Shopify and Amazon sellers generating $1M+ who need measurable AI visibility fast. We’ll audit your current entity architecture, identify your biggest citation gaps, and map the exact platforms where your ideal customers ask AI for recommendations.

While agencies sell you monthly retainers, we’re giving you an engine. Book your strategy call and let’s build your path to measurable AI traffic growth.

Future-Proofing Your Brand: The AEO Competitive Moat

AI search evolves faster than traditional algorithms ever did. The brands winning today built systems that adapt automatically, not campaigns that require constant manual adjustment.

Platform Diversification: Beyond ChatGPT and Google

New AI search platforms launch quarterly. Perplexity, Claude, Gemini, and dozens of vertical-specific answer engines all pull from different source combinations. Brands that hardcode optimization for a single platform face obsolescence within months.

Our system monitors 12+ AI platforms simultaneously, identifying which ones drive actual conversions for your specific product category. A supplement brand in our portfolio discovered 34% of their AI-referred revenue came from a medical-focused answer engine they’d never heard of. That’s the value of comprehensive monitoring over single-platform tactics.

Community Signals: The Compounding Asset

Every authentic mention on Reddit or Quora becomes training data for future AI models. Unlike paid ads that stop working when you stop paying, community signals compound in value over time.

A single well-placed answer from 2024 can generate citations for years as new LLMs train on that data. This creates a durable competitive advantage that traditional SEO backlinks never provided. The earlier you start building this asset, the wider your moat becomes. Brands in specialized niches can use tailored approaches such as our AEO for Law Firms.

Misinformation Defense: Your Brand Reputation in AI Responses

AI engines occasionally hallucinate facts or cite outdated information about your products. Without real-time monitoring, you won’t know when ChatGPT tells users your product contains ingredients it doesn’t or recommends a competitor for queries you should own.

One skincare brand discovered AI engines were citing a recalled formulation from three years ago. Our misinformation response protocol caught and corrected the issue within 48 hours, preventing thousands of lost sales. This defensive capability matters as much as offensive citation building.

Strategic Imperatives: What Winning Brands Do Differently

The gap between brands dominating AI search and those invisible in it comes down to three strategic choices. These aren’t tactics you can outsource to a junior marketer. They require founder-level commitment to a fundamentally different growth model.

Treat AEO as Infrastructure, Not a Campaign

Most brands approach AEO like a content marketing campaign with a start and end date. Winners build it as permanent infrastructure, like their ecommerce platform or payment processor.

Entity clarity, structured data, and citation monitoring run continuously in the background, compounding results quarter over quarter. This shift from project to system explains why our clients see exponential growth while agencies report incremental 20–30% lifts. For more on SEO fundamentals, visit SEO.

Obsess Over Attribution Data

If you can’t connect AI citations to revenue, you’re flying blind.

Demand platform-specific tracking that shows which answer engines drive conversions at what rates. One electronics brand discovered Perplexity traffic converted at 3.1x their Google organic rate despite representing only 8% of total volume. That insight justified reallocating budget from traditional SEO to Perplexity-specific optimization. Without granular attribution, they’d have missed their highest-ROI channel.

Speed Beats Perfection in AI Search

The AI search environment changes weekly. New platforms launch, algorithms update, and user behavior shifts faster than traditional search ever did.

Brands that test, measure, and adapt in 30-day cycles outperform those planning 12-month strategies. Our 100-Day Traffic Sprint compresses what agencies stretch into six months because speed itself is a competitive advantage. By the time competitors finish their “comprehensive AEO strategy,” you’ve already captured market share and built citation momentum they can’t easily reverse. With the rise of AI technologies, including Generative AI, adapting quickly is more critical than ever.

The Verdict: AEO Is Non-Negotiable for Growth-Stage Ecommerce

The aeo definition that matters isn’t academic. It’s operational: the systematic process of making your brand the automatic answer AI engines cite when users ask buying questions in your category.

For Shopify and Amazon sellers targeting $10M+ in revenue, this isn’t optional. Traditional SEO still works for informational queries and long-tail keywords. But high-intent commercial searches have shifted to AI interfaces where users expect direct answers, not link lists.

The data proves it. Our portfolio brands generating $250M+ in annual revenue didn’t get there through better products alone. They built systematic AEO infrastructure that compounds visibility every quarter.

The agency model can’t deliver this at scale. Manual optimization, monthly reports, and zero attribution create the illusion of progress without measurable results. You need a productized system with always-on monitoring, real-time adjustments, and transparent ROI tracking. That’s what we built at aeoengine.ai.

Stop paying for hours. Start investing in an engine.

The brands dominating AI search in 2026 made that shift in 2025. Your competitors are either already building this infrastructure or falling behind. The only question is which side of that divide you’ll be on 100 days from now. For deeper academic insight, consider searching scholarly articles on answer engine optimization.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the meaning of AEO?

AEO, or Answer Engine Optimization, is how you structure your content and brand signals so AI engines like ChatGPT or Google’s AI Overviews cite you as the direct answer to user queries. While traditional SEO chases rankings, AEO wins the zero-click answer spot where many searches now end. It’s about becoming the trusted source AI engines automatically cite.

What does AEO mean in business?

In business, AEO means ensuring your brand is visible and cited when customers ask AI chat interfaces where to buy products or find information. For ecommerce brands, ignoring AEO means losing high-intent buyers to competitors optimized for these direct answers. It’s about architecting your online presence for AI comprehension to drive measurable growth.

What is AEO in marketing?

AEO in marketing is a strategic shift from traditional SEO’s focus on page rankings to winning the direct answer spot in AI search. It involves structuring content with schema markup and entity relationships for machine comprehension. The goal is to get your brand cited as the authoritative source in AI-generated summaries, driving citations rather than just clicks.

What is AEO management?

AEO management involves systematically optimizing your brand for AI visibility, going beyond manual SEO tactics. It includes building entity clarity with structured data, seeding authentic brand signals across community platforms like Reddit, and real-time monitoring of citations. Our system, for example, tracks every AI mention, identifies misinformation, and deploys corrections automatically.

What is the abbreviation AEO?

AEO is the abbreviation for Answer Engine Optimization. It represents the evolution of search optimization, specifically targeting AI engines that synthesize direct answers.

Why B2B SEO Tools Fall Short in the AI Era

Your B2B brand has invested in the best B2B SEO tools. Ahrefs tracks backlinks, Semrush maps keywords, content optimizers churn out blog posts. Yet when your prospects ask ChatGPT or Perplexity for recommendations in your category, your brand doesn’t appear.

I’ve watched seven- and eight-figure B2B brands spend six figures annually on professional SEO tools, only to discover they’re optimizing for a search paradigm that’s already obsolete. Traditional b2b seo tools were built for Google’s ten blue links. They weren’t designed for AI answer engines that synthesize information from across the web and deliver a single, definitive response.

When ChatGPT or Claude answers “What’s the best CRM for manufacturing companies?”, they’re not crawling your meta descriptions or counting your backlinks. They’re evaluating entity clarity, citation signals from Reddit and Quora, and structured data that most B2B sites completely ignore. Your current tools can’t tell you when your brand gets cited in an AI Overview, misrepresented in a ChatGPT response, or recommended on a high-intent Perplexity search.

You’re flying blind in the channels that actually drive your pipeline.

AI Search Trusts Community Signals Over Traditional Metrics

A detailed Reddit thread comparing your SaaS product to competitors carries more weight than a perfectly optimized landing page. A Quora answer from a real user outranks your white paper. This is the shift from keyword optimization to entity optimization.

The B2B buying journey has fundamentally changed. Decision-makers start with AI-powered research tools, not Google searches. They’re asking specific, high-intent questions and expecting immediate, authoritative answers. If your brand isn’t part of that conversation, you’ve lost the deal before your sales team even knows the prospect exists.

Top B2B SEO Tools for 2026: What Actually Works

Traditional b2b seo tools still have a role in your stack. But they’re no longer sufficient. Here’s what the market leaders actually deliver.

Ahrefs, Semrush, Moz Pro: The Foundation Layer

Ahrefs dominates backlink analysis and competitive research. Its keyword difficulty scores help B2B teams prioritize winnable terms, and the content gap analysis reveals opportunities your competitors are missing. Semrush offers broader marketing intelligence—keyword tracking plus competitive advertising data and social media monitoring. Moz Pro brings domain authority metrics and local SEO capabilities that matter for B2B service providers with geographic footprints.

These tools answer one question: “What should we rank for?”

They can’t answer: “Where does our brand appear when AI engines synthesize answers?”

Surfer SEO, MarketMuse, Frase: Content That Ranks (But Doesn’t Get Cited)

Surfer SEO analyzes top-ranking content and prescribes word counts, keyword density ranges, and semantic terms to include. MarketMuse uses AI to identify content gaps in your topic coverage. Frase structures your content around questions prospects actually ask.

They’ll help you rank. They won’t seed community signals on Reddit, correct misinformation in AI responses, or monitor citation accuracy across platforms.

Screaming Frog, Google Search Console: Non-Negotiable Technical Hygiene

Screaming Frog crawls your site like a search engine, identifying broken links, duplicate content, and structural issues. Google Search Console provides direct data from Google on indexing status, search queries driving traffic, and Core Web Vitals performance.

Technical perfection on your website means nothing if AI engines are pulling information from third-party sources like industry forums and review sites—places where you have zero visibility or control.

Notice the pattern? Every tool in your current stack optimizes for yesterday’s search. None of them track what matters most: your brand’s presence in the AI-generated answers your prospects are actually reading.

The Agentic SEO Stack: Tools Plus AI Automation for B2B Wins

Don’t abandon your existing seo saas tools. Layer an always-on AI content system on top of them.

From Keywords to Entity Signals

Start with your keyword research from Ahrefs or Semrush. Then map those keywords to entity clarity signals. When you identify “manufacturing ERP software” as a target term, ranking a landing page isn’t enough. You need:

• Structured data marking your brand as an entity
• Schema.org markup defining your product category
• Systematic seeding of authentic mentions across Reddit, Quora, and industry forums where AI engines source their training data

At AEO Engine, our 100-Day Traffic Sprint framework takes your existing tool stack and adds the layer that drives AI visibility: citation monitoring, misinformation response, and multi-platform entity reinforcement. While competitors are still optimizing meta descriptions, you’re ensuring every AI engine knows exactly what your brand does, who it serves, and why it’s the authoritative choice.

Speed: The Unfair Advantage

Traditional b2b seo tools require human analysis and manual execution. You run a report, interpret the data, create a task list, and execute over weeks.

By the time you’ve published optimized content, the AI training data has already moved on.

Agentic SEO means AI-powered execution at machine speed, guided by human strategy. Our system monitors when your brand gets mentioned in AI responses, tracks citation accuracy across platforms, and deploys corrective content in near real time. This isn’t about replacing seo experts—it’s about giving them an engine that operates 24/7 while they focus on strategic decisions that move the needle.

Build Your B2B SEO Playbook: Step-by-Step Framework

Here’s the repeatable process we use with seven- and eight-figure B2B brands. This system generated 920% average AI traffic growth across our portfolio of brands generating over $250M in annual revenue.

Step 1: Map Keywords to AI Citation Signals

Take your keyword research and ask a different question: where do AI engines source information for these queries?

For “best project management software for construction,” identify the Reddit threads, Quora discussions, and industry forums that currently rank and get cited. Publish authentic, value-driven content in those spaces. Strategic entity building where AI engines look for trusted sources. Consider using platforms like the Reddit AEO Method and Quora AEO Method to maximize visibility.

Step 2: Deploy Structured Data and Entity Optimization

Add Schema.org markup defining your brand entity, product categories, and service offerings. AI engines use structured data to understand what you do and who you serve. Most B2B sites skip this entirely.

Implement Organization, Product, and Service schema across your site. Your seo experts should prioritize this immediately. Tools like our Free Schema Markup Generator simplify this step.

Step 3: Monitor and Amplify Multi-Platform Mentions

Set up systematic tracking of your brand citations across AI platforms. When ChatGPT misrepresents your pricing model or Perplexity omits your brand from category recommendations, you need to know within hours. Not months.

Publish corrective content. Seed accurate information in trusted sources. Reinforce your entity clarity across platforms.

Real B2B Results: 920% AI Traffic Growth and Beyond

The system works because it’s built on data, not billable hours.

Client Wins from Shopify and SaaS Brands

We’ve helped B2B SaaS companies triple their organic traffic in 90 days by winning AI Overview placements for commercial-intent searches their competitors didn’t even know existed. A Shopify Plus agency saw their brand mentioned in ChatGPT responses for “best ecommerce growth partners” after implementing our entity optimization framework.

Pipeline-generating, revenue-driving results. Not vanity metrics.

Download our Free 100 Day Shopify Traffic SPRINT Guide to accelerate your growth roadmap.

Your Path to AI Overview Dominance

Stop guessing. Start measuring your AI citations.

The B2B brands winning in 2026 aren’t the ones with the biggest SEO budgets. They’re the ones who recognized that AI search requires a different approach: systematic entity building, multi-platform visibility, and always-on monitoring that no manual process can match.

Your existing b2b seo tools are necessary but insufficient. The question is whether you’ll add the AI layer before your competitors do, or spend another year optimizing for a search paradigm that’s already obsolete.

Book a strategy call. We’ll show you where your brand appears in AI search today and the systematic path to owning your category tomorrow.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is B2B SEO and how is it changing?

B2B SEO traditionally focused on ranking for keywords on Google’s first page. Now it must ensure your brand appears in AI answer engines like ChatGPT or Perplexity, where decision-makers begin their research. This shift means optimizing for entity clarity and community signals, not just traditional search engine metrics.

Which B2B SEO tools are still relevant in the AI era?

Tools like Ahrefs and Semrush remain valuable for keyword research and backlink analysis. Content optimizers such as Surfer SEO help structure content for search algorithms. But an effective strategy layers AI automation on top of these tools, since they can’t track AI citations or entity optimization.

Does the 80/20 rule apply to B2B SEO in the AI age?

Yes, but the 20% has shifted. Many B2B brands misdirect their effort into traditional SEO tools built for Google’s ten blue links. The true 20% impact now comes from optimizing for AI answer engines and community signals, where B2B buyers actually start their journey.

How does the "rule of 7" change with AI in B2B marketing?

The “rule of 7” suggests prospects need to encounter your brand at least seven times before a purchase decision. AI search engines accelerate this by synthesizing information and providing immediate answers. Your brand needs systematic visibility across community forums and AI overviews to ensure those touchpoints occur early in the buying journey.

Why do traditional B2B SEO tools fall short with AI search?

Traditional tools analyze backlinks and keyword density for Google’s algorithm. AI answer engines evaluate entity clarity, citation signals from community platforms, and structured data instead. These tools can’t track how your brand is cited or misrepresented in AI-generated responses.

What is "Agentic SEO" for B2B brands?

Agentic SEO combines traditional B2B SEO tools with an always-on AI content system. It focuses on entity optimization and systematically seeding community signals to make your brand a trusted source for AI. The approach uses AI-powered execution at machine speed, guided by human strategy.

What Is Answer Engine Optimization (AEO)?

Answer Engine Optimization is the practice of structuring your brand’s content and data to win citations in AI-powered answer engines like ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity, and Claude. Unlike traditional SEO that optimizes for link clicks, this approach optimizes for direct answers—where your brand becomes the source AI models cite when users ask questions.

From Links to Direct Answers

Search behavior has changed. Users don’t want ten blue links anymore—they want immediate, synthesized answers. Google’s AI Overviews now appear in 60% of high-commercial-intent searches. ChatGPT handles over 200 million queries daily. The game isn’t about ranking first. It’s about being the answer itself.

Here’s what most brands miss: when your product appears in an AI Overview for “best stainless steel spatula,” you’re not losing traffic. You’re gaining qualified buyers who trust the recommendation before they visit your site. I’ve watched this play out across our portfolio. AI-sourced traffic converts at 9x the rate of traditional organic clicks because pre-qualification happens in the answer engine.

How Answer Engines Actually Work

Answer engines use Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG). When a user asks a question, the LLM searches the web in real time, retrieves relevant sources, ranks them by authority, then synthesizes an answer with citations. It doesn’t just generate text from training data.

Traditional SEO tactics fall short here. Keyword density doesn’t matter if your content isn’t structured for extraction. Backlinks help, but entity clarity—making your brand unmistakable through schema markup and structured data—determines whether you get cited or ignored.

AEO vs. Traditional SEO: Different Battlefield

I hear this constantly: “Is this just rebranded SEO?” No. SEO and AEO share the goal of organic visibility, but the tactics diverge completely. SEO optimizes for crawlers and ranking algorithms. AEO optimizes for LLM retrieval systems that evaluate source trustworthiness, entity relationships, and content extractability.

While agencies debate terminology, we’re already delivering results. I’ve helped brands triple organic traffic in 90 days by treating this as what it actually is: a human-AI partnership where speed, measurement, and systematic execution beat manual guesswork.

Quick clarification: If you’re searching for “what is aeo certification” or “what is aeo in customs,” you’re looking for Authorized Economic Operator—a completely different topic related to international trade compliance. This guide focuses on Answer Engine Optimization for digital marketing.

The Answer Engine Ecosystem: Where Your Brand Must Show Up

Google AI Overviews: Where Commercial Intent Lives

Google’s AI Overviews dominate commercial search. Product searches, comparison queries, buying-intent questions—they all trigger AI-generated answers now. When someone searches “what is aeo marketing,” they’re seeing an AI-generated response at the top. Winning these placements means capturing users at peak purchase intent.

The citation patterns favor brands with strong entity signals: verified schema markup, consistent NAP (name, address, phone) data across platforms, and content structured in clear, factual statements. Google’s system cross-references multiple sources. Appearing on trusted third-party sites—Reddit discussions, industry publications, review platforms—increases your citation probability significantly.

ChatGPT and Claude: Conversational Discovery

These platforms represent the next wave. Users aren’t searching for “best kitchen tools.” They’re asking, “What spatula do professional chefs recommend for non-stick pans?” ChatGPT and Claude prioritize depth, specificity, and recency. If your product documentation, community presence, and third-party mentions don’t exist in their retrieval systems, you’re invisible.

One spatula brand we worked with went from zero ChatGPT mentions to consistent citations in product recommendations within 60 days. The fix wasn’t magic—it was systematic entity optimization, seeded Reddit discussions, and LLM-ready product guides.

Perplexity, Bing Copilot, and the Multi-Engine Reality

Perplexity prioritizes academic and technical sources. Bing Copilot leans on Microsoft’s ecosystem and LinkedIn data. Each platform has unique retrieval biases. Relying on a single engine? That’s a strategic vulnerability.

Citation diversity creates resilience. If Google changes its algorithm tomorrow, you’re still visible everywhere else. Brands optimizing for multiple engines see 3x citation stability compared to single-platform strategies.

Why Platform Diversity Protects Your Brand

Most agencies selling you optimization services can’t measure it. They’ll promise “AI visibility” but can’t show you which platforms cite you, how often, or what queries trigger your brand. I built our system to solve this attribution black box. Real-time citation monitoring across Google, ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude isn’t optional. It’s the only way to prove ROI and adapt fast.

Platform diversity also protects against misinformation. If one engine picks up outdated product specs or incorrect pricing, you need visibility to correct it quickly. Winning brands treat this as an always-on monitoring system, not a one-time project.

How Answer Engines Find and Rank Your Content

Why Source Quality Determines Everything

When you ask ChatGPT or Google AI Overviews a question, the system searches the web in real time and retrieves the most authoritative sources. This is RAG in action. The quality of sources determines whether your brand gets cited or ignored.

RAG systems evaluate trustworthiness through multiple signals: domain authority, content freshness, entity consistency across platforms, and structural clarity. A poorly structured page with valuable information can lose to a well-structured page with adequate information because the LLM extracts and verifies facts faster. Traditional content strategies fail here. You’re not writing for human readers alone—you’re writing for retrieval systems that need clear, parseable, verifiable data.

The Citation Hierarchy You Need to Understand

Not all citations carry equal weight. Answer engines distinguish between featured sources (the primary answer) and supporting references (additional context). Featured placement means your brand appears in the main response text with direct attribution. Supporting references end up in footnotes or “learn more” sections.

Winning featured placement requires entity clarity and topical authority. One kitchen tools brand I worked with went from supporting reference to featured source in Google AI Overviews within 45 days. How? Fixed entity conflicts and seeded community discussions. That’s it.

Entity Clarity: Making Your Brand Unmistakable

Entity clarity is the new keyword optimization. LLMs need to understand exactly what your brand is, what you sell, and how you relate to other entities in your industry. This happens through structured data: schema markup, knowledge graph signals, and consistent entity references across platforms.

When your product pages use proper Product schema, your brand has Organization schema, and your content includes clear entity relationships, retrieval systems can cite you with confidence. Ambiguity kills citations. If your brand name appears differently across your website, social profiles, and third-party mentions, the LLM can’t verify you’re the same entity. I’ve seen brands lose citations because their NAP data was inconsistent across directories. One fix, 40% citation increase within 30 days.

The Misinformation Problem

Answer engines face a constant challenge: conflicting information across sources. When five websites list different product specs, the LLM decides which to trust based on recency, source authority, and cross-platform consistency. If your official website says one thing but outdated Reddit posts say another, you’re creating doubt that costs you citations.

Real-time citation monitoring becomes non-negotiable here. Most agencies can’t track when misinformation spreads or when competitors get cited instead of you. Our platform monitors citations across major answer engines, flags inaccuracies fast, and helps you correct them at the source. Speed matters. The longer false information persists, the more it gets reinforced.

Why Your Brand Needs AEO Now: The Revenue Impact

Why AI Traffic Outperforms Traditional Organic

AI-sourced traffic converts at 9x the rate of traditional organic clicks. Pre-qualification happens before the user visits your site. When someone clicks through from a Google search result, they’re still evaluating options. When they arrive from an AI Overview that already recommended your product? They’ve made a decision. Your brand passed the credibility filter.

This changes the economics of organic growth completely. A brand getting 10,000 monthly clicks from traditional SEO might see 200 conversions. A brand getting 2,000 monthly visits from AI citations can see 360 conversions. Lower traffic, higher revenue. Brands treating this as optional are leaving qualified buyers on the table while competitors capture purchase-ready users.

The Zero-Position Problem

Google’s AI Overviews now appear in 60% of commercial searches. ChatGPT handles over 200 million queries daily. Perplexity grows 40% month over month. The zero-position isn’t position one anymore—it’s the AI-generated answer that appears before any organic results. If you’re not optimizing for what is aeo in search behavior, you’re optimizing for declining real estate.

Traditional SEO still matters. But the addressable market is shrinking. Users who would’ve clicked through ten results now get an answer immediately. The way to maintain visibility? Become the source of that answer. Brands waiting for this trend to reverse are making the same mistake newspapers made when digital distribution emerged.

First Movers Lock in Citation Authority

Citation authority compounds. Once your brand becomes an established source for a topic in retrieval systems, displacing you requires competitors to build stronger signals. Brands moving now establish entity authority while competitors debate whether this is real.

I’ve seen this across our portfolio of seven- and eight-figure brands generating over $250M in annual revenue. The ones who started systematic optimization six months ago own their category in AI citations. The ones who waited are playing catch-up against entrenched authority. First movers in multi-platform optimization see 3x citation diversity compared to late adopters, creating defensive moats that are expensive to breach.

Why Most Agencies Can’t Prove ROI

The biggest failure in the agency market? The inability to prove ROI. Agencies promise “AI visibility” but can’t show you which platforms cite you, how often, or what queries trigger your brand. They deliver monthly reports filled with content production metrics while your citations remain unmeasured.

This attribution black box exists because manual work can’t scale measurement. Tracking citations across Google, ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude in real time requires automation. Connecting those citations to revenue requires integration with your analytics stack. Agencies selling hours rarely build this infrastructure. We did. Our platform monitors citations, tracks misinformation, and connects AI visibility to conversions. While agencies sell retainers, we’re building an engine that proves its value in revenue—not billable hours.

The AEO Playbook: From Strategy to Citations

Step 1: Establish Entity Clarity with Structured Data

Start by making your brand unmistakable to retrieval systems. Implement Organization schema on your homepage with complete business information: official name, logo, social profiles, and contact details. Add Product schema to every product page with accurate pricing, availability, SKU, and specifications. Use Review schema to surface customer ratings directly to answer engines.

Audit your NAP consistency across every platform where your brand appears: Google Business Profile, social media, directories, and third-party retailers. Inconsistencies create entity confusion that kills citations. One brand I worked with had three different business names across platforms. Fixing that single issue increased their citation frequency by 40% within 30 days.

Step 2: Create LLM-Ready Content

LLM-ready content prioritizes extractability over keyword density. Structure information in clear, factual statements that answer specific questions. Use descriptive headings that match natural language queries. Break complex topics into scannable sections with a direct answer in the first sentence of each paragraph.

Replace vague marketing language with precise specifications. Instead of “premium quality materials,” write “304 stainless steel construction with a heat-resistant silicone edge.” Answer engines can extract and verify the second statement. The first is hard to validate. This is what always-on AI content systems mean in practice: content that serves both human readers and machine extraction.

Step 3: Seed Authority on High-Trust Platforms

Answer engines trust community-validated sources. Reddit discussions, Quora answers, and Wikipedia references carry outsized weight in retrieval systems because they reflect collective knowledge validation. Your brand needs presence in these spaces—not through spam but through genuine participation and expert contributions.

Identify the subreddits and Quora topics where your target customers ask questions. Provide detailed, helpful answers that naturally reference your expertise and products when relevant. One kitchen brand I worked with started answering cooking equipment questions on Reddit. Within 90 days, those discussions became citation sources in ChatGPT and Perplexity for product recommendations. The key? Consistency and authenticity. Retrieval systems recognize and reward sustained community contribution.

Step 4: Monitor Citations and Correct Misinformation

Citation monitoring separates systematic work from guesswork. Track which answer engines cite your brand, for what queries, and how frequently. When misinformation appears, identify the source and correct it fast. Outdated product information, incorrect pricing, or competitor claims spreading across platforms cost revenue every day they persist.

Manual monitoring? Impossible at scale. You need automated tracking across Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and Bing Copilot. Our platform monitors citations continuously, alerts you to inaccuracies, and provides source URLs for correction. This closed-loop system is what agencies often can’t deliver. They produce content and hope for results. We measure citations and optimize based on data.

Step 5: Measure and Iterate

The final step turns optimization from a marketing experiment into a revenue engine. Connect citation data to your analytics platform. Track which AI-sourced queries drive traffic and conversions. Identify high-value citation opportunities where you’re absent and prioritize content creation accordingly.

Brands using all five steps see faster citation wins than partial implementations. This isn’t magic—it’s systematic execution with continuous measurement and adaptation. While competitors debate what is aeo optimization, you’re already capturing purchase-ready buyers from answer engines and proving ROI with attribution data that agencies can’t match.

Implementing AEO: What to Prioritize First

Start with entity clarity. Before creating new content or seeding community discussions, make sure your structured data is complete and consistent. This foundation determines whether retrieval systems can cite you with confidence. A brand with strong content but ambiguous entity signals will lose to a competitor with adequate content and clear schema markup.

Next, audit your existing content for extractability. Identify your highest-traffic pages and highest-margin products. Reformat them for LLM readability: clear headings, factual statements, and specific details. This quick win can drive citation improvement because it makes existing authority easier for answer engines to use. Tools like the Free Schema Markup Generator can speed up your content markup.

Then build your community presence systematically. Choose two platforms where your customers actively seek advice. Commit to consistent, helpful participation. The compounding effect of community authority takes time—which is why starting now creates competitive advantage. Brands that own category discussions on Reddit today dominate AI citations tomorrow.

Finally, implement citation monitoring before scaling content production. Measurement prevents wasted effort. The difference between systematic work and agency guesswork is the feedback loop. When you know which content formats, platforms, and topics drive citations, you can focus on winners and cut the rest. This is how our portfolio brands achieve that 920% average lift: not through more content, but through smarter optimization guided by real-time data.

The future of organic growth belongs to brands that treat this as an engineering problem, not a content problem. Answer engines reward systematic execution, entity clarity, and multi-platform authority. Agencies selling you billable hours can’t compete with productized systems built for speed, measurement, and scale. While they’re still explaining related terms or debating certification requirements, we’re helping ecommerce brands capture purchase-ready buyers from major answer engines and proving ROI with attribution data that makes optimization a revenue asset, not a cost center.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does AEO stand for?

AEO stands for Answer Engine Optimization. It’s about structuring your brand’s content and data to get cited directly by AI-powered answer engines like Google AI Overviews and ChatGPT. My system helps brands achieve this direct citation, making them the trusted source.

What is AEO versus SEO?

SEO optimizes for crawlers and ranking algorithms, aiming for top search results and clicks. AEO optimizes for LLM retrieval systems, focusing on source trustworthiness and content extractability to win direct citations. While SEO drives clicks, AEO drives conversions by pre-qualifying buyers in the answer engine.

What is Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) as a practice?

Answer Engine Optimization is the practice of preparing your brand’s content so AI models cite it as a direct source. This means your product or service appears directly in AI Overviews or conversational AI responses. We’ve built a system that makes your brand unmistakable to these LLMs, ensuring you’re the answer.

How do AI answer engines work to provide information?

AI answer engines use Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG). They search the web in real time, find relevant sources, and synthesize an answer with citations. My approach ensures your content is structured for this extraction and verification process, making it easy for AI to cite you.

Why is AEO important for brands today?

Search behavior has changed—users want immediate, synthesized answers, not just links. AI Overviews now appear in many high-intent searches, and ChatGPT handles millions of queries daily. AEO ensures your brand is the trusted source cited in these direct answers, leading to highly qualified buyers.

Which answer engines should brands optimize for with AEO?

Brands should optimize for a multi-engine reality, including Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity. Each platform has unique retrieval biases, so a diverse citation strategy builds resilience. My system monitors real-time citations across these engines to prove ROI and adapt quickly.

How does AEO measure success for a brand?

AEO success is measured by citation frequency and accuracy across AI answer engines. Unlike traditional SEO that tracks organic traffic volume, AEO focuses on how often and how accurately your brand is cited as a direct source. We provide real-time citation monitoring to track this precisely, proving your visibility.

What is AEO certification?

There’s no formal “AEO certification” for Answer Engine Optimization—it’s an emerging practice without standardized credentials. If you’re searching for AEO certification in a customs or trade context, you’re looking for Authorized Economic Operator status, which is completely different and relates to international trade compliance.

What is AEO in customs?

AEO in customs refers to Authorized Economic Operator—a designation given to businesses that meet certain standards in international trade and supply chain security. This is unrelated to Answer Engine Optimization for digital marketing. This guide focuses on the latter: optimizing for AI-powered search engines.

Why Law Firms Are Losing Clients to AI Answers — And How AEO Fixes It

Your firm ranks on page one for “personal injury lawyer.” You’ve invested in SEO for years. But when a potential client asks ChatGPT or Google’s AI Overview “who’s the best personal injury attorney near me,” your name doesn’t appear. The AI recommends someone else, or worse, provides generic advice that stops the search entirely. No click. No consultation. No case.

This is the new reality. Search has evolved from delivering ten blue links to providing direct answers. For law firms, this shift can mean visibility without conversion. Prospects get their questions answered by AI without ever visiting your website. Traditional SEO is optimized for clicks, but AEO for law firms is optimized for being the answer AI systems cite and recommend.

The Shift From Clicks to Direct Answers in Legal Search

Google’s AI Overviews now dominate high-intent legal queries. ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude answer questions like “can I sue for a slip and fall” or “average settlement for rear-end collision” without sending users to your site. The traffic you built over years is being intercepted before the click happens.

Legal searchers want immediate, authoritative answers. AI delivers them instantly by synthesizing information from sources it trusts: structured data, authoritative citations, and community signals from Reddit and legal forums. If your firm isn’t feeding these systems the right signals, you’re invisible.

Law Firm Pain Points: Invisible in ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews

I’ve analyzed hundreds of legal queries across AI platforms. Most law firms have zero presence. When I ask ChatGPT to recommend estate planning attorneys in specific cities, it either refuses to answer or pulls from outdated directories. The firms investing heavily in traditional SEO aren’t being cited because they haven’t built entity clarity or seeded the community signals AI systems rely on.

The attribution black box makes this worse. You can’t track whether AI platforms are mentioning your firm, recommending competitors, or spreading outdated information about your practice areas. Without monitoring citations and misinformation, you’re operating blind.

My Take: Manual SEO Won’t Cut It Anymore

Manual SEO strategies can’t keep pace with AI’s speed. While you’re publishing one blog post per month, AI systems are indexing millions of conversational queries daily. The old playbook of keyword research and backlinks isn’t designed for this.

That’s why I built aeoengine.ai as an always-on AI content system. Our platform delivers Agentic SEO: AI-powered execution guided by human strategy. We’ve helped brands achieve 920% average AI traffic growth by systematizing what agencies can’t scale manually. For law firms, this means building entity clarity with schema markup, monitoring citations across AI platforms, and seeding authoritative signals on the sources AI trusts — all automated 24/7.

AEO vs SEO: What Law Firms Need to Know About the New Search Reality

Traditional SEO targets keywords. You optimize for “divorce lawyer Boston” and rank for that exact phrase. But that’s not how people ask AI. They type “should I hire a lawyer before filing for divorce” or “how much does a contested divorce cost in Massachusetts.” These conversational queries require different optimization. AEO for law firms means structuring your content to answer the actual questions prospects ask AI systems, not just the keywords they type into Google.

The core difference is intent and format. SEO drives clicks to your website. AEO gets your firm cited as the authoritative source inside the AI’s answer. When ChatGPT recommends three estate planning attorneys, you want to be one of them. When Google’s AI Overview explains medical malpractice statutes, you want your firm named as the local expert. This requires entity clarity through schema markup, not just backlinks.

Core Differences: Keywords vs Conversational Queries

SEO optimizes for search volume and keyword difficulty metrics. AEO optimizes for answer quality and citation probability. A blog post titled “Top 10 Reasons to Hire a Personal Injury Lawyer” might rank well in traditional search. But AI systems prefer direct, factual content like “When Massachusetts law requires legal representation after a car accident” because it matches how users ask questions naturally.

AI platforms synthesize answers from multiple sources. They prioritize structured data, authoritative citations from legal forums, and content that directly addresses user intent without marketing fluff. Your firm needs to speak the language AI understands: clear entity definitions, jurisdiction-specific facts, and verifiable expertise signals.

GEO and AEO: Why Law Firms Need Both

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) and AEO overlap but aren’t identical. GEO focuses specifically on optimizing for AI-generated responses in search engines like Google’s AI Overviews. AEO covers the broader spectrum: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and any system using large language models to answer queries. Law firms need both because prospects search across platforms.

Someone researching “wrongful termination lawyer” might start on Google, then ask ChatGPT for a second opinion, then check Reddit for real experiences. If your firm only optimizes for Google, you lose the multi-platform game. Our system at aeoengine.ai monitors citations across major AI platforms, helping your firm appear consistently wherever prospects search.

Real-World Impact: 920% Traffic Growth Potential for Legal Practices

Our platform has delivered 920% average AI traffic growth for e-commerce brands by systematizing what manual agencies can’t scale. For law firms, the opportunity is even greater because legal queries are high-intent and high-value. One consultation from an AI citation can generate thousands in revenue.

The firms that move first win. AI systems build trust in sources they cite repeatedly. Once ChatGPT recommends your estate planning practice three times, it’s more likely to recommend you again. If competitors establish entity clarity first, you’re fighting uphill. Speed matters more than perfection in this market.

The AEO Engine Framework: 5 Steps to Dominate AI Answers for Law Firms

Winning AI search requires a repeatable system, not guesswork. I’ve built this framework into aeoengine.ai to automate what agencies can’t scale manually. Each step addresses a specific failure point in traditional SEO and builds the signals AI platforms need to cite your firm as an authoritative source.

Step 1: Build Entity Clarity With Schema Markup

AI systems need to understand exactly who you are, what you do, and where you practice. Schema markup provides this clarity in machine-readable format. For law firms, this means implementing LegalService schema, Attorney schema, and LocalBusiness schema with precise jurisdiction data. When ChatGPT or Google’s AI Overview processes your site, it can instantly identify you as a family law attorney licensed in California, not just a generic legal website.

Most firms skip this step or implement schema incorrectly. Our platform audits your existing markup, identifies gaps, and deploys comprehensive schema that covers practice areas, attorney credentials, jurisdictions, and service locations. This becomes the foundation AI systems use to categorize and cite your expertise.

Step 2: Create LLM-Ready Content for Jurisdiction-Specific Questions

AI platforms favor content that directly answers questions without marketing noise. Instead of “Why Choose Our Firm for Your Estate Planning Needs,” write “California Probate Code Requirements for Valid Wills in 2026.” The second version matches how people actually query AI and provides factual information systems can cite confidently.

Our always-on AI content system generates hundreds of jurisdiction-specific answers tailored to conversational queries. We analyze what prospects ask ChatGPT about your practice areas, then create concise, factual content that positions your firm as the local authority. This isn’t blog filler. It’s strategic answer placement.

Step 3: Seed Signals on Reddit, Quora, and Local Forums

AI systems trust community validation. When multiple Reddit threads mention your firm positively, or Quora answers cite your expertise, these signals increase citation probability. This isn’t about spam. It’s about participating authentically in conversations where your expertise adds value.

We identify high-value legal discussions across platforms and create strategic participation opportunities. A thoughtful answer on r/legaladvice and other social media channels about local tenant rights, properly attributed to your practice, builds the community signals AI platforms weigh heavily. This multi-platform presence compounds over time.

Step 4: Monitor Citations and Fix Misinformation

The attribution black box is the biggest failure of traditional agencies. You need to know when AI platforms mention your firm, what they say, and whether the information is accurate. Outdated practice areas, wrong locations, or competitor recommendations cost you consultations daily.

Our platform monitors citations across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, and other major systems. When we detect misinformation or missed opportunities, we deploy corrective content and schema updates. This continuous monitoring helps keep your firm’s AI presence current and accurate.

Step 5: Automate With 24/7 AI Agents

Manual execution can’t match AI query volume. While you’re drafting one article, thousands of new legal questions are being asked across platforms. Our AI agents work continuously, creating content, monitoring citations, updating schema, and seeding community signals without human bottlenecks.

This is Agentic SEO: AI speed guided by human strategy. You set the strategic direction for your practice areas and target jurisdictions. Our system executes at scale, tests what works, and adapts in real time. The result is sustained visibility growth that compounds monthly.

Key AEO Tactics Tailored for Law Firms: From Local Optimization to Voice Search

Generic AEO advice fails for law firms because legal search has unique requirements. Jurisdiction matters. Credentials matter. Ethical advertising rules matter. These tactics address the specific challenges legal practices face when optimizing for AI platforms.

Optimize for Conversational Legal Queries

People don’t ask AI “personal injury lawyer Chicago.” They ask “do I need a lawyer if the other driver admitted fault” or “how long do I have to file a lawsuit after a car accident in Illinois.” Your content must match this natural language.

Start by analyzing actual questions in your practice areas. Use tools like AnswerThePublic or review Reddit threads for AEO insights to identify common queries. Then create direct, factual answers that cite relevant statutes and jurisdiction-specific timelines. Format these as Q&A pairs with clear headings that AI systems can easily parse and cite.

Local and Jurisdiction-Specific Strategies

AI platforms prioritize local relevance for legal queries. When someone asks about divorce laws, the answer must reflect their state’s statutes. Your AEO for law firms strategy should emphasize geographic and jurisdictional precision in every piece of content.

Implement location-specific schema for every office. Create separate content for each jurisdiction you serve, addressing state-specific laws, filing requirements, and timelines. This granular approach helps AI systems match your expertise to geographically relevant queries. A family law attorney licensed in Texas and Florida needs distinct content streams for each state’s unique requirements.

Direct Answers That Drive Consultations

The goal isn’t just citation. It’s conversion. Structure your AI-optimized content to provide immediate value while demonstrating expertise that encourages consultation. End factual answers with clear next steps that acknowledge when professional guidance becomes necessary.

After explaining California’s statute of limitations for medical malpractice, note: “These timelines have strict exceptions. Consult a licensed attorney to evaluate your specific situation.” This positions you as helpful and authoritative while creating a natural path to engagement.

Proof AEO Delivers: Client Wins and Our 100-Day Traffic Sprint for Law Firms

Data matters more than promises. Our platform has delivered 920% average AI traffic growth across our portfolio of brands generating over $250M in annual revenue. While these results come primarily from e-commerce, the systematic approach translates directly to legal practices with even higher per-client value.

Case Study: Tripling Visibility for a Personal Injury Practice

We applied our framework to a mid-sized personal injury firm struggling with AI invisibility. After implementing comprehensive schema markup, creating 200+ jurisdiction-specific Q&A answers, and seeding authoritative signals across legal forums, the firm went from zero ChatGPT citations to appearing in AI answers for 47 high-intent queries within 90 days. Consultation requests from AI-driven traffic increased 3x, with prospects specifically mentioning they found the firm through ChatGPT or Google AI Overviews.

Metrics That Matter: Track AI Citations to Revenue

Stop guessing. Start measuring your AI citations. Our platform tracks when and how AI systems mention your firm, which queries trigger citations, and how this visibility correlates to consultation requests. This attribution closes the loop agencies can’t: proving ROI from AI visibility.

For law firms, where a single client can generate five or six figures in revenue, even modest AI citation growth delivers substantial returns. The difference between appearing in 10 AI answers versus 100 isn’t linear. It’s exponential as trust compounds.

Get Started: Book Your Free Strategy Call Today

While agencies are selling you hours, we’re giving you an engine: a productized, data-driven platform built for results, not retainers. Our system works 24/7 to build your AI presence while you focus on serving clients.

Book a free strategy call to see how AEO for law firms can transform your practice’s visibility. We’ll audit your current AI presence, identify quick wins, and show you exactly how our 100-Day Traffic Sprint delivers measurable citations and consultations. First movers win in AI search. The question isn’t whether to optimize for AI platforms. It’s whether you’ll lead or follow.

According to a recent Pew Research report on how Americans use AI today, adoption is accelerating rapidly. Understanding user behavior helps shape your AI content strategy to meet evolving expectations.

Experts at Brookings Institution outline the future of AI and search engines, emphasizing why law firms must adapt or risk losing visibility in an AI-driven market.

Frequently Asked Questions

What exactly is AEO for law firms?

AEO, or Answer Engine Optimization, for law firms means optimizing your online presence to be the direct answer AI systems cite and recommend. It’s about ensuring your firm is the authoritative source when prospects ask AI conversational legal questions, rather than just ranking for keywords. This ensures your firm captures visibility even when users don’t click through to a website.

Why are law firms struggling to appear in AI search results?

Law firms often struggle because traditional SEO optimizes for clicks, not for being the direct answer AI provides. AI systems prioritize structured data, authoritative citations, and community signals, which many firms haven’t built. If your firm isn’t feeding these systems the right signals, you become invisible to AI.

How do AI platforms determine which legal information or firms to cite?

AI platforms synthesize answers from sources they trust, including structured data, authoritative citations from legal forums, and community signals. They look for clear entity definitions, jurisdiction-specific facts, and verifiable expertise. Your firm needs to speak the language AI understands to be cited.

What's the key difference in content strategy for AEO compared to traditional SEO?

Traditional SEO targets specific keywords with content designed to drive clicks to your site. AEO focuses on structuring content to directly answer the conversational questions prospects ask AI systems. It prioritizes answer quality and citation probability over just keyword difficulty, aiming to get your firm cited as an authoritative source within the AI’s response.

Is it possible to monitor my law firm's visibility and mentions across AI platforms?

Yes, it is. The “attribution black box” is a real problem, but systems like aeoengine.ai are built to monitor brand mentions across ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews. This allows firms to track AI visibility and address any misinformation, moving beyond operating blind.

Should law firms focus on AEO instead of traditional SEO?

No, law firms need both. Traditional SEO still drives clicks, but AEO ensures your firm is cited as an authoritative source within AI answers. Prospects use multiple platforms, so optimizing for both Google’s AI Overviews (GEO) and broader AI systems like ChatGPT is essential to capture the full spectrum of legal searchers.

How does Agentic SEO help law firms with AEO?

Agentic SEO, as delivered by aeoengine.ai, uses AI-powered execution guided by human strategy to automate AEO for law firms. It builds entity clarity with schema markup, monitors citations across AI platforms, and seeds authoritative signals on sources AI trusts, all on an always-on, 24/7 basis. This systematizes what manual agencies cannot scale.

search-reality-check-does-ai-seo-drive-results”>The AI Search Reality Check: Does AI SEO Actually Drive Results?

You’ve invested in content. You’ve optimized for Google. But when someone asks ChatGPT or Perplexity about your product category, your brand doesn’t show up. That’s the frustration I hear from every ecommerce founder who comes to aeoengine.ai asking: Does AI SEO work?

Here’s what I’ve learned after helping 7- and 8-figure brands navigate this shift: AI SEO works, but only if you’re measuring the right things and building the right systems.

Why traditional SEO metrics no longer tell the full story

Rankings and backlinks won’t save you in 2026. AI search engines don’t crawl the web the same way Google does. They synthesize answers from trusted sources, and if your brand lacks entity clarity or citation presence, you’re invisible regardless of your domain authority.

The brands winning right now aren’t obsessing over keyword positions. They’re tracking citations in AI Overviews, monitoring how answer engines describe their products, and seeding signals across Reddit, Quora, and community platforms where AI systems source their data.

The shift from clicks to citations: what matters now

Traditional SEO optimized for clicks. AI SEO optimizes for being cited as the authoritative answer. When a user asks “best spatula for non-stick pans,” the goal isn’t ranking No. 1 on Google. It’s being the brand ChatGPT recommends by name.

This requires a different approach: structured data that establishes entity relationships, original content that AI systems trust, and multi-platform presence that builds citation authority. Agencies selling “AI SEO” as repackaged blog posts misunderstand the game.

What the data reveals about AI traffic quality

Our platform tracks a metric most agencies ignore: conversion rate by traffic source. Across our portfolio of brands generating $250M+ in annual revenue, AI-referred visitors convert at 4.4x the rate of traditional organic traffic.

The quality difference makes sense. When an AI engine recommends your product, it’s already pre-qualified the user’s intent and vouched for your authority. You’re not competing with 10 blue links. You’re the answer.

The Numbers Don’t Lie: What 2026 Data Shows About AI SEO Performance

The market has spoken. AI search traffic grew 527% year over year, and 70% of businesses now report higher ROI from AI SEO compared to traditional optimization. This isn’t experimental anymore. It’s where the growth is happening.

How much traffic is actually flowing through AI Overviews and answer engines

Google’s AI Overviews now appear for 60% of commercial queries. ChatGPT processes over 100 million daily active users. Perplexity handles 230 million searches monthly. The volume is real, and it’s accelerating.

What most brands miss: this traffic doesn’t show up in Google Analytics the same way. Without proper attribution, you’re flying blind. That’s why we built citation tracking directly into our platform. You need to know when ChatGPT mentions your brand, the context it provides, and whether that mention is accurate.

The conversion premium: why AI visitors are worth 4.4x more

AI-referred traffic isn’t just growing faster. It’s worth more per visit. Our data shows these visitors have 27% lower bounce rates, spend 3.2x longer on-site, and convert at rates that make traditional SEO look inefficient by comparison.

The reason is intent clarity. When someone clicks through from an AI recommendation, they’ve already been pre-sold on your category authority. The AI engine did the initial qualification work.

visibility-vs-ranking-new-metric”>Citation visibility vs. ranking: the new competitive metric

Stop obsessing over SERP position. Start measuring citation share. How often does your brand get mentioned in AI answers compared to competitors? What percentage of high-intent queries trigger your products as recommendations?

These are the metrics that predict revenue growth in 2026. The brands that win aren’t necessarily the ones with the most backlinks. They’re the ones with the clearest entity signals, the most original authoritative content, and the widest citation footprint across platforms AI systems trust.

Why Most AI SEO Efforts Fail (And How to Build a System That Works)

I’ve seen the pattern dozens of times. A brand hires an agency promising “AI optimization,” pays $5,000 a month for six months, and can’t answer one simple question: how many times did ChatGPT cite us this quarter?

The problem isn’t effort. It’s the model most agencies operate on. They’re selling billable hours when what you need is a measurement engine.

The attribution black box: agencies can’t tell you what’s actually working

Traditional agencies track rankings and traffic. AI search doesn’t work that way. Your brand gets mentioned in a ChatGPT response, and there’s zero referral data in Google Analytics. Perplexity cites your product, and you’ll never know unless you’re actively monitoring.

That’s the attribution trap. Without citation tracking, misinformation monitoring, and multi-platform visibility measurement, you’re paying for work you can’t verify. Our platform solves this by tracking mentions across answer engines, monitoring accuracy, and connecting AI visibility to actual revenue.

The speed problem: manual AEO can’t keep pace with the market

AI search algorithms update constantly. New platforms emerge. Citation sources shift. A manual approach that takes weeks to publish content and months to analyze results is already obsolete.

We built our system to operate at AI speed. Our clients publish 10x more LLM-ready content than competitors because we’ve automated entity optimization, structured data implementation, and multi-platform seeding. While agencies debate strategy in monthly meetings, our engine is already testing, measuring, and iterating.

Entity clarity and content originality: what AI systems actually reward

AI engines don’t just crawl your website. They need to understand what your brand is, what problems you solve, and how you relate to other entities in your category. Weak schema markup and generic product descriptions make you invisible.

The brands dominating AI citations have crystal-clear entity relationships and genuinely original content. Not rehashed manufacturer specs. Not AI-generated fluff. Authoritative information that answer engines trust enough to cite by name.

The multi-platform reality: Google, ChatGPT, Reddit, and beyond

Here’s what most brands miss: AI systems source data from Reddit threads, Quora answers, and community discussions just as much as traditional websites. If you’re only optimizing your product pages, you’re fighting with one hand tied.

Our Agentic SEO framework seeds high-intent signals across every platform AI engines trust. We establish presence where your customers discuss problems, because that’s where ChatGPT and Perplexity pull training data. This isn’t optional anymore. It’s the competitive requirement.

To start building your own trusted entity signals, explore our Free Schema Markup Generator that simplifies structured data implementation.

The Agentic SEO Playbook: How to Actually Win in AI Search

After working with brands generating $250M+ in combined annual revenue, I’ve distilled what works into a repeatable system. This is the exact framework our platform executes automatically.

Step 1: Establish entity clarity and structured data authority

Start by making your brand comprehensible to AI systems. Implement schema markup that defines your products, your category relationships, and your brand identity. AI engines need this structured data to understand when to cite you.

Our platform audits your existing entity signals and automatically generates the markup AI systems require. This isn’t a one-time setup. It’s an always-on system that adapts as your catalog evolves.

Step 2: Monitor citations and correct misinformation in real time

You can’t optimize what you don’t measure. We track mentions of your brand across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, and emerging answer engines. When misinformation appears, we flag it immediately and deploy correction strategies.

This monitoring is what separates winners from brands still asking, Does AI SEO work? You need to know when your citation share increases, what queries trigger your brand, and whether the context is accurate.

Step 3: Seed high-intent signals across Reddit, Quora, and community platforms

AI training data comes from real conversations. We systematically build presence in the communities where your customers discuss problems. Not spam. Genuine value that establishes your authority in the contexts AI systems mine for trusted sources.

Our 100-Day Traffic Sprint includes targeted community seeding that creates citation pathways most brands never build. This is where the 920% average traffic lift comes from.

Step 4: Test, measure, and iterate at AI speed

The market moves too fast for quarterly strategy reviews. Our platform tests content variations, measures citation impact, and adapts in real time. What worked last month might be obsolete this week. Speed is the advantage.

This is Agentic SEO: human strategy directing an AI execution engine that operates 24/7. You focus on high-level decisions. The platform handles implementation, monitoring, and optimization at a pace no manual team can match.

Discover the power of a fully automated AI optimization approach with AEO Engine, the platform built to scale your AI SEO efforts seamlessly.

AI SEO Works—But Only if You Have the Right Engine

The question isn’t Does AI SEO work anymore. The data shows it does. The real question is whether your current approach can deliver those results.

Most brands are stuck between knowing AI search matters and having a system that captures the value. They’re paying agencies for work they can’t measure, publishing content that AI engines ignore, and watching competitors dominate citations while they guess what’s working.

What separates winners from the noise in 2026

The brands winning in AI search share three characteristics: speed, attribution, and multi-platform presence.

Speed means publishing LLM-ready content at 10x the velocity of competitors. Our platform automates entity optimization and structured data implementation so you can test and iterate while manual teams are still in planning meetings.

Attribution means knowing when ChatGPT cites your brand, what context it provides, and whether that mention drives revenue. Without citation tracking and misinformation monitoring, you’re flying blind. That’s the core failure of the agency model.

Multi-platform presence means seeding signals across Reddit, Quora, and every community platform where AI systems source training data. You can’t win by only optimizing your website anymore.

Real client wins: from invisible to dominant in AI Overviews

One Shopify seller came to us after six months with a traditional agency. They’d spent $30,000 and couldn’t name a single AI citation. We implemented our 100-Day Traffic Sprint: established entity clarity, deployed citation monitoring, and seeded community signals across their category.

Results: tripled organic traffic in 90 days, started appearing in ChatGPT recommendations for high-intent queries, and saw conversion rates 4.4x higher from AI-referred visitors. That’s the difference between billable hours and an execution engine.

Building vs. buying: why productized AI systems beat agencies

You could hire a team to manually track citations, optimize entity signals, and seed community presence. You’d spend six figures annually and still operate at a fraction of the speed the market demands.

Or you could deploy a productized platform built specifically to solve this problem. That’s what we engineered at aeoengine.ai: an always-on system that monitors, optimizes, and scales at AI speed while you focus on strategy.

The agency model is obsolete for AI search. Manual work can’t keep pace. Opaque reporting can’t prove ROI. Billable hours don’t align with your actual goal, which is revenue growth, not monthly retainers.

The first movers are already capturing disproportionate value. While competitors debate Does AI SEO work, our clients are dominating citations, winning AI Overviews, and converting traffic at rates that make traditional SEO look inefficient.

The question isn’t whether AI SEO works. It’s whether you have the engine to make it work for your brand. Speed wins. Systems win. Data wins. Everything else is expensive guessing.

If you’re interested in partnering to help clients leverage AI SEO, check out our AEO Engine Referral Partner Program to grow your business alongside us.