Direct answers (AEO)
Above the results, Google answers on its own: AI summaries, featured snippets, related questions. See which direct answers appear for your customers’ questions, which sources feed them and which of your pages do not yet answer clearly.
The second question
AEO, Answer Engine Optimization, asks whether search engines’ direct answers use your information. It is not a ranking: it is a passage from your website that is reused, cited or ignored in the answer the customer reads first.
For each direct-answer format: where it appears on the results page and what TrustInsider records to tell whether it uses your information.
| Format | Where it appears | What we record |
|---|---|---|
| AI Overviews | At the top of the results, as a generated summary with its sources. | Whether it appears, whether it names the brand and which pages it cites. |
| AI Mode | In a dedicated tab, as a conversation with links to the sources. | The answer’s sources, observed as a user sees it. |
| Featured snippet | Above the first result, with a passage taken from a page. | Which page supplies the passage and whether it is yours. |
| People also ask | Among the results, as a list of related questions that expand. | The questions shown and the website that answers each one. |
Format by format
For every panel question we record which formats appear and how many cite your website. A question can show more than one, so each format has its own count and its own base: no total merges them.
A qualitative map with no numbers: how often a direct-answer format appears for your questions and how often it cites your website, with a reading of each situation.
How often it cites your website
How often the format appears
The format already uses your pages: protect the content that feeds it.
The answer is there but leans on magazines or competitors: this is the priority.
Few opportunities, already taken: there is little ground to gain.
Before acting, ask yourself whether the question really calls for a short answer.
Question by question
Open a question and see the direct answer with its sources: the magazine, the forum, the competitor’s page. When your page is missing, you know which text the engine preferred to yours.
A sample featured snippet about a fictional brand: the fact is correct, but the source is a magazine, because the product page does not state it in text.
QuestionCan the Aurae 2 headphones be used on a plane with the cable?
Sample featured snippet · fictional brand
Yes: the Aurae 2 work with the cable and the two-pin airline adapter, according to the in-flight test published by a trade magazine. The in-flight battery life quoted is the previous model’s.
The fact is correct, but the product page does not state it in text.
The source is the magazine: the direct answer does not go through your website.
An outdated figure: compare it with the approved facts before correcting it.
Does your website answer?
For every page a question calls for, you see whether it answers clearly, partly or not at all, what is missing, the structure that makes the passage extractable and the recommended structured data.
The sample record of a product page for a fictional brand: the questions it should answer, its status, the missing content, the structure and the recommended structured data.
From approved facts
A content gap is not filled with invented text. The proposal starts from the approved facts in Brand context, reaches the Action Center with its lens and is applied only after your approval.
Five steps: find the unanswered question, approve the fact, write the passage, approve and apply it, then read the same questions again.
A panel question finds no answer in text on the website.
The missing data is approved in Brand context, with its source.
The proposed text uses only approved facts and the recommended structure.
You publish it, or the connected destination does after your approval.
The same questions in the following observations, alongside control questions.
What counts
Your website answers only if a readable passage in the served HTML answers the question and matches the approved facts. Data locked in an image or loaded later by a script is not counted.
Four aspects of a page read twice: how data that does not count as an answer looks, and how a passage the engine can extract looks.
| Does not count as an answer | Counts as an answer | |
|---|---|---|
| Where the data sits | Inside an image or a chart with no alternative text. | In a readable sentence in the HTML the server sends. |
| When it arrives | In a table loaded later, by a script. | In the page from the first load, with no waiting. |
| What it says | A value outdated compared with the approved facts. | The same value approved in Brand context. |
| How it is written | Scattered through a generic introductory paragraph. | The question as a heading and the answer right below. |
Frequently asked questions
How AEO differs from SEO and GEO, how much structured data matters, how we observe Bing’s answers and what a featured snippet is.
SEO asks whether you appear in the results, AEO whether the engine’s direct answers use your pages, GEO whether AI assistants name and recommend you. Three questions, three measures, never added together.
No. They help a machine read information, but no engine commits to showing it. They count together with a clear passage of text and facts consistent with the rest of the website.
Bing’s generated answers are not exposed by the results sources we use: they stay out of the count and the page says so, instead of counting them as absent.
It is the passage Google takes from a page and shows above the first result. If the passage is yours, your page answers before it is even opened.
Related paths
Each feature answers a specific question. From here you move on to related features, to the methodology behind their measures and to help for using them in everyday work.
See which customer questions bring you up on Google and Bing, which pages earn clicks and who ranks ahead of you, intent by intent.
ReadObservation after observation, see whether AI assistants recommend you, which competitor they prefer instead and which sources they lean on.
ReadCollect your brand mentions with date, channel, topic and tone, exclude namesakes and always trace back to the original source.
ReadWhat to change, on which page or source, with what text and in what order: the GEO action plan, checked on the same questions.
Read