How to Avoid Bad Advice About AI & SEO

How do you know if the SEO advice you're getting is any good?

The answer isn't about finding the right buzzword, it's about recognizing when someone is selling you a myth.

Terms like AEO and GEO get pitched as replacements for SEO, but Google itself has flagged this exact claim as a warning sign when evaluating consultants.

1. The AEO and GEO myth and where it's coming from
2. What Google's own guidance says about AI search
3. Why the changes for AI search are smaller than past SEO shifts
4. One question to ask before hiring an SEO/AI consultant

Knowing this one distinction protects you from hiring the wrong person and wasting money chasing a trend that doesn't exist.

Timestamps
[0:00] Introduction
[1:04] Where this bad advice is coming from
[1:27] The overwhelming message: SEO is dead
[2:09] Why the AEO and GEO claim is false
[3:14] How AI models actually access search data
[4:29] Why the changes for AI search are subtle, not dramatic
[5:31] Only one consultant out of dozens debunked the myth
[7:28] Closing and where to find the free Primer

Read the Google Guide:
Optimizing your website for generative AI features on Google Search
https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/ai-optimization-guide

--

Send me your AI/SEO questions!
https://www.meredithshusband.com/podcast

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

Meredith's Husband 0:33

All right, going to talk about today something that I have talked about before on other episodes, but I want to dedicate a full episode to it because this is something that I am seeing every day more and more, just how prevalent it is. And that is the rumor that is out there about things called AEO, GEO. There was another one called AIO, but that one disappeared. So I found myself on a directory recently of SEO professionals. And it specifically was SEO consultants and agency

Why This Myth Needs Debunking

Meredith's Husband 1:07

owners trying to appear as a guest on episodes of other podcasts. And so these are probably the types of voices that you are hearing out there when you listen to other podcasts about SEO. It's this is literally the pool of people who a lot of those shows are taking from. So there is a pretty good chance you've heard advice like this. And the thing that I found, and I went through, I don't know, several

The Directory That Spreads It

Meredith's Husband 1:31

dozen profiles and I looked at people's pitches, essentially, what their what their message was, what they hope to bring to those episodes. And overwhelmingly, it was the message that SEO is dead. Traditional SEO is dead. That exact phrase was used at least probably a dozen times. And how AEO, a G O, and to a lesser extent, AIO have replaced SEO, that SEO is a thing of the past now. And I want to explain this very specifically because there's a good chance at some point you might hire an individual, a consultant or a friend or somebody to help you do, to help you strategize

Why SEO Is Not Dead

Meredith's Husband 2:12

or even implement your SEO. Because then I'm sure, like most business owners, one of your goals is to get more visibility organically, whether that's in the traditional Google search engine or in a new platform like AI models. And the problem is that that statement, SEO is dead, and the new thing is AEO, GEO, whatever you want to call it, that statement is pure bunk. I mean, that is real BS. Even Google has very specifically called those out as being fake, basically. And Google says if you come across a professional who says things like that, then Google has a link that you can go look at that says how to evaluate third-party SEO consultants. And when I say Google, this specifically is instructions about AI, how to get into Google's Gemini, which is an AI model, which is going to operate the same way as the other AI models when it comes to search, except that Google has a little more data to work with. Google obviously has direct access to the Google search engine. The other AI models are basically

What Google Says About AI Search

Meredith's Husband 3:17

using it kind of like URI would. They have an API that they are able to search Google with, which is more than U or I would do, but it's still not the same as the access that Google themselves would have to the Google search engine. So Google Gemini, Google has specific instructions on how to get your website into AI searches. And one of the very first things they say, in fact, I think it is the first thing they say, is these rumors about AEO, GEO that these are BS. What you do want to do, and I cover this in my AI crash course, which is coming up very soon with a re-release, and it's laid out fairly well by Google also, is you want to build on the SEO that you have. There are really no new dramatic changes to what you need to do for your website if you want to appear in AI searches compared to what you have been doing if you want to appear in regular search engines. Now, there are changes, but to be honest, in the history of SEO, the changes that we're doing now for this are relatively minor compared to some of the changes, a lot of the changes we have made in the past in how we do SEO. The changes that you want to make for AI, they're subtle. They're tweaking things like your the structure

Real Changes For AI Visibility

Meredith's Husband 4:32

of your content. And spoiler alert, it's not rewriting things for AI, it's making things more clear for people in a way that AI often cites information. Hopefully that gives you an idea. It's not big dramatic things that you need to do now for AI search. The problem that I see for you, if you're listening to this, you're probably listening to other podcasts about SEO as well, or watching videos or getting information somewhere. And now I can see just how many people are out there claiming to be SEO professionals and saying SEO is dead, that the AEO GEO is the new thing. Now, I can say with a 100% certainty that that is not the case. Okay. So if somebody says that to you, either they don't know what they're talking about, or they're just trying to say what they think people want to hear, or they're trying to get your business. It's a it's a sales tactic, and they're trying to sound like they are doing the new best thing. And when I say the majority of consultants out there were

How To Vet SEO Consultants

Meredith's Husband 5:35

saying things like this, I looked at, I don't know exactly, but it's probably around three dozen profiles of SEO consultants, and only one of them said that this was not true. Only one person came out and debunked this AEO GEO myth. And it wasn't me. So it seems to me, pretty much a fact, that you're getting up probably a lot of mixed messages about this stuff. So if you do come across somebody making those claims about AEO and GEO and how they're the new thing, my very strong recommendation to you is to not hire that person or that company. Now, obviously you can do what you want. Maybe it is somebody who is just saying those things as a sales tactic and they need to say it in order to win business because everybody else is saying it. But even in that case, and I would say that's the best case scenario, even then would you want to hire somebody who's doing that? What I would do if I were you, if you're talking to somebody about SEO and thinking of hiring them, I would ask them very specifically something like, Is AI and AGO and GEO, is it the death of SEO? And if they say yes, again, I have 100% confidence that I would not hire that person. And if they say something like, it has changed some of the way search, let me tell you how it's different. That is a much better answer. That's the type of answer I would want to get if I were going to hire an SEO person. All right. And if you want to get more details from me, that AI crash course is coming up soon. In the meantime, I took the old AI crash course and I split it up into two. There's now a completely free version. You can get that online now. That's called the SEO plus AI Primer. If you're a member of the Insiders, the newsletter group, you've already got access to it. If you want to get access to it, you can just go to MeritasHusband.com, scroll down, you'll see the sign up. It's 100% free. It's a five video series that spends a bit of time discussing this exact issue. Okay,

Free SEO Plus AI Primer

Meredith's Husband 7:31

I hope it helps.