Apparently, making your content readable is now called “chunk optimization.”
Answering customer questions is AEO. Getting your business mentioned elsewhere is GEO. And SEO is dead, again.
Here’s what I meant.
Myth 1: You need an llms.txt file to show up in AI
An llms.txt file is often presented as an essential step towards making your website ready for AI search.
Before accepting that recommendation, ask which platform uses it, how it uses it and what evidence shows it will help your website appear.
A proposed format and a proven visibility requirement are two different things.
My concern is when adding a file gets sold as a meaningful AI search strategy while basic problems go unresolved. Your product information might be missing, your important pages might be difficult to access, or your content might never answer the questions customers ask.
Start with those problems. Ask for evidence before treating another file as the fix.
Myth 2: “Chunk optimization” is a new marketing breakthrough
Breaking content into useful sections is sensible.
Descriptive headings help readers find answers. Short paragraphs make pages easier to read. Keeping related information together makes an explanation easier to follow.
We’ve been doing this for years.
Retrieval systems may process passages of content, but that doesn’t make every recommendation to shorten a paragraph a specialist AI service.
If someone suggests restructuring your content, ask them to show you what’s unclear and how their changes will improve it.
There should be more to the recommendation than a new name for readable writing.
Myth 3: AEO and GEO have nothing in common with SEO
Look at the work being recommended.
Make your website accessible. Explain your products clearly. Answer relevant questions. Improve internal links. Keep information current. Earn coverage from credible sources.
There is considerable overlap with SEO.
AI answers do give us different things to investigate. We can examine which sources get cited, how brands are described and whether they appear in recommendations.
But a different interface doesn’t erase the foundations underneath it.
If someone insists their approach is completely separate from SEO, ask them to explain which activities are different, why they matter and how they’ll measure the results.
Myth 4: SEO is dead
This claim seems to return every time the way people search changes.
AI is changing how people discover information and evaluate businesses. That deserves attention.
It also gives us more questions to answer. What information can these tools find about your business? Is it accurate? Who else is shaping the recommendation? Does your website explain enough to help someone make a decision?
Those are questions an SEO strategy should address.
If your definition of SEO stops at putting a keyword in a title, it needs updating. That doesn’t mean the discipline has disappeared.
What I’d focus on instead
Start with the questions your customers ask before buying.
Make sure your website answers them clearly, with specific information and evidence behind important claims. Explain who your product suits, where its limitations are and how it compares with alternatives.
Then investigate what search engines and AI tools actually show for those questions.
Look at the sources, the descriptions and the gaps. Use what you find to decide what needs improving.
That gives you a reason for the work. It also gives you something more useful to discuss than whether the proposal should say SEO, GEO or AEO.
My position is simple: good SEO is the foundation of good GEO and AEO.
There’s plenty to learn about AI search. We can do that without pretending clear writing and useful content were invented yesterday.
My comments on AEO and GEO myths were featured in Roger Montti’s article, “A Little Clarity On SEO, GEO, And AEO,” published by Search Engine Journal.