# AEOing > Plain-spoken guides to answer engine optimization (AEO), generative engine optimization (GEO) and agent optimization, built on SEO fundamentals. Every claim is labelled proven, practice or experimental. Note: llms.txt is an unproven community proposal. No major AI provider has confirmed using it. See https://aeoing.com/evidence/ ## Pages - [AEOing: Answer, Generative and Agent Engine Optimization](https://aeoing.com/): Plain-spoken guides to AEO, GEO and agent optimization, built on search fundamentals and labelled by evidence. - [Learn AEO, GEO and Agent Optimization](https://aeoing.com/learn/): The four core topics: AEO, GEO, agent engine optimization and the SEO fundamentals underneath them. - [What is AEO (Answer Engine Optimization)?](https://aeoing.com/what-is-aeo/): AEO is making content easy for answer engines to find, understand and use when they respond to a question. - [What is GEO (Generative Engine Optimization)?](https://aeoing.com/what-is-geo/): GEO is improving how often and how accurately generative AI systems cite or mention your content in the answers they write. - [What is Agent Engine Optimization (AgEO)?](https://aeoing.com/what-is-agent-engine-optimization/): AgEO is making a site usable by AI agents that act for people: reading pages reliably, following links and completing tasks. - [SEO Fundamentals for AI Search](https://aeoing.com/seo-fundamentals-for-ai-search/): The technical and content basics that AI search features depend on: crawlability, indexing, internal links, page experience and original content. - [Our Evidence Standard](https://aeoing.com/evidence/): How AEOing labels every claim as proven, practice or experimental, what we checked, and how we handle changes. - [AEO, GEO and AI Search Glossary](https://aeoing.com/glossary/): Short definitions of AEO, GEO, AgEO, llms.txt, grounding, RAG, query fan-out and other AI search terms. - [Tools](https://aeoing.com/tools/): Free tools for checking AI crawler access and llms.txt are planned. None are live yet. - [Services](https://aeoing.com/services/): AEOing does not offer paid services yet. This page will describe them when they exist. - [About AEOing](https://aeoing.com/about/): AEOing is an independent educational publication about answer engine, generative engine and agent optimization. - [Contact](https://aeoing.com/contact/): How to reach AEOing with corrections, questions or ideas. - [Guides](https://aeoing.com/guides/): Answer-first guides on AEO, GEO, agent optimization and the SEO they depend on. - [Newsletter](https://aeoing.com/newsletter/): Get an occasional email when AEOing publishes new guides or platform guidance changes. - [Privacy Policy](https://aeoing.com/privacy/): What AEOing collects, why, how long we keep it and how to ask us to delete it. ## Guides - [Should you block AI crawlers?](https://aeoing.com/guides/should-you-block-ai-crawlers/): For most sites that want to be found, no. Allow AI search bots, decide on training bots deliberately, and use robots.txt by named bot. - [Agent optimization briefing: MCP Server Cards, Cloudflare crawler rules and a new agent protocol](https://aeoing.com/guides/agent-briefing-mcp-server-cards-cloudflare-crawlers-and-personal-agent-protocol/): MCP Server Cards are now Final as an optional discovery extension, Cloudflare changed how Block treats mixed-use crawlers, and Sierra and Meta proposed a Personal Agent Protocol. - [GEO briefing: a new study says retrieval, not page tweaks, drives most ChatGPT citations](https://aeoing.com/guides/geo-briefing-retrieval-drives-most-chatgpt-citations-arxiv-study/): An arXiv study of 468,037 ChatGPT citations reports that retrieval explains about 32% of citation variation against 2.8% for page properties. A small vendor study agrees on the sources. - [Does llms.txt work?](https://aeoing.com/guides/does-llms-txt-work/): llms.txt is a community proposal. No major AI provider has confirmed using it, and Google says you do not need it. It is cheap to add and unproven. - [AEO briefing: Google adds links to AI answers and a site-wide AI control](https://aeoing.com/guides/aeo-briefing-google-links-in-ai-answers-and-generative-ai-control/): Google announced more inline links in AI Overviews and AI Mode and now documents a Search generative AI control. Two small studies show AI assistants send little traffic. - [Does schema markup help AI search?](https://aeoing.com/guides/does-schema-markup-help-ai-search/): Google says no special schema is needed for its AI features. Structured data is still useful for clarity, rich results and entity identity, if it matches the page. - [What happened to FAQ rich results?](https://aeoing.com/guides/what-happened-to-faq-rich-results/): Google stopped showing FAQ rich results in Search in 2026. FAQPage markup is still valid schema.org, but adding FAQs only for markup is not worthwhile. - [How to write answer-first content](https://aeoing.com/guides/how-to-write-answer-first-content/): Put the direct answer in the first sentence under each question heading, then add detail. It is a writing practice, not a Google requirement. - [Is AEO different from SEO?](https://aeoing.com/guides/is-aeo-different-from-seo/): For Google Search, AEO and GEO are part of SEO. They are useful lenses for writing and structure, not separate systems with separate rules.