Frequently asked questions
Short, direct answers to the most common questions about SEO, Answer Engine Optimization and Generative Engine Optimization.
Short answer
What is the difference between SEO, AEO and GEO?
SEO gets your pages ranked in search results. AEO shapes those pages so search features and voice assistants can quote a direct answer from them. GEO makes your content easy for AI assistants such as ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews to find, trust and cite. Each builds on the one before it.
Getting started
Which should I start with: SEO, AEO or GEO?
Start with SEO. A page has to be crawlable and indexed before an answer engine can quote it or an AI assistant can cite it. Then add answer-first structure (AEO) and sourced, quotable facts (GEO) to the pages that already rank.
Can one page be optimised for all three at once?
Yes, and it should be. A page with a clear question heading, a short direct answer, supporting lists or tables, cited sources and correct schema serves search engines, answer engines and AI assistants with the same content.
What does THB SEO do?
THB SEO is the search and AI-visibility service of THB — The House of Business in Dhaka. We audit, fix and grow websites so they rank on Google and Bing, get quoted in answer boxes and get cited by AI assistants, and we publish free tools and guides on the same subjects.
Do you work with businesses outside Bangladesh?
Yes. All work can be done remotely, and our team writes and optimizes in English, Bangla and other languages with THB’s translation team.
How is this website itself built for SEO, AEO and GEO?
Every page is pre-rendered static HTML, has a canonical URL, Open Graph tags and a linked JSON-LD graph (Organization, WebSite, WebPage, Article, BreadcrumbList, FAQPage). Robots.txt explicitly allows AI retrieval bots, and /llms.txt is generated from the same content as the pages.
SEO questions
How long does SEO take to work?
Google’s own guidance says that in most cases it takes four months to a year from the start of changes to see the benefit. New sites and competitive topics usually sit at the longer end.
Is SEO still worth it now that AI answers exist?
Yes. Google’s AI Overviews and AI Mode draw on pages that are already indexed and eligible to show a snippet, and ChatGPT and Perplexity also run web searches before answering. Strong SEO is the foundation of AEO and GEO.
Does Google use the meta keywords tag?
No. Google announced in 2009 that it does not use the meta keywords tag in web ranking.
Do I need to pay for SEO?
No. Organic rankings cannot be bought. You may pay for tools, writers or consultants, but placement in organic results is earned, not purchased.
AEO questions
Is AEO different from SEO?
AEO is a specialisation within SEO. SEO gets a page ranked; AEO shapes the content on that page so a search feature or assistant can quote the answer directly.
Does FAQ schema still work?
Not in Google. Google restricted FAQ rich results to government and health websites in 2023 and removed them for all sites in May 2026. FAQPage is still valid schema.org, other engines and parsers can still read it, and it does no harm when it matches visible content.
How long should a direct answer be?
A common practitioner guideline is 40–60 words for the first answer paragraph. There is no official limit; what matters is that the answer is complete and makes sense on its own.
Do zero-click answers hurt my traffic?
Some simple questions are answered without a click. In exchange you gain visibility and brand recall, and people with deeper needs still click through. Focus AEO on questions that lead naturally to your product or service.
GEO questions
Does GEO replace SEO?
No. Google says pages only need to be indexed and eligible for a snippet to appear in AI Overviews and AI Mode, and other assistants retrieve pages through search indexes too. GEO builds on SEO; it does not replace it.
Should I block GPTBot and other training crawlers?
It is a business choice. Blocking training bots keeps your content out of future model training but does not stop retrieval bots such as OAI-SearchBot or ChatGPT-User from citing you, as long as those remain allowed.
Is there special schema for AI Overviews?
No. Google states there is no special schema.org markup or AI text file required. Accurate standard schema — Organization, Article, FAQPage, BreadcrumbList — still helps every engine understand your pages.
Why do AI crawlers need plain HTML?
Many AI crawlers fetch the raw HTML and do not run JavaScript. If your text only appears after scripts execute, those bots may see an empty page. Static or server-rendered HTML, as this site uses, avoids the problem.