SEO fundamentals still work. Content, backlinks, and authority aren't going anywhere.
But there’s a shift in the infrastructure determining what actually surfaces.
With AIOs appearing on 21% of searches and Gemini prioritizing Reddit threads over official sites, we are officially in the era AEO/GEO era.
And Tarek Reslan explores how the rules of the game are changing:
1) Your site is no longer the only source of truth: Traditional SEO is linear. You get a backlink, you get trust. But GEO flips this.
To AI, repetition signals credibility in more than one authoritative domain.
You need to stop obsessing over just your own URLs and manage your brand presence across the entire web like it’s a ranking signal. Put yourself in many places.
2) The #1 spot on Google is losing its crown: If you think ranking first guarantees AI citations, think again. AI runs multiple variations of a search to find a consensus.
A niche site with a perfectly structured table can now leapfrog a corporate giant with 10k backlinks because the AI is optimizing for the best answer extraction, not the oldest domain.
3) Informational traffic is being swallowed by zero-clicks: Your how-to guides are in danger. Google’s AIOs are increasingly answering queries in-line, meaning the user gets the info, and you get zero traffic.
To survive, you have to optimize for citations within the AI response itself and shift your focus to content that AI can't easily replicate. Unique stuff. Internal data. Expert takes.
4) Structure is the new word count: Long-form narrative buried under fluff is an AI's worst enemy. If we want to be cited, you need to lead with direct answers in the first 100 words.
You aren't writing for humans who like storytelling anymore; you’re writing for models that are hungry for data extraction. If it’s easy to parse, it’s easy to cite.
5) Don't burn the old playbook just yet: Despite the buzzwords, we shouldn't abandon traditional SEO. GEO is a layer on top of the fundamentals, not a replacement.
If your site structure is broken or your content is thin, no amount of AI optimization will save you. Audit your top informational posts to see how ChatGPT and Gemini treat them.
If you rank #3 on Google but aren't being cited by the AI, your structure, not your authority, is the problem.
SEO didn’t die, it just grew a few more heads. You need to play the game as it exists today, not how it worked five years ago.
