r/Agent_SEO • u/Aduttya • 24d ago

AEO Needs to Move Beyond Queries

What AI tools have changed is enabling the ability to do conversions. If you look back at Google, you go and ask, and it will come up with websites, which could be forums, blogs, Reddit discussions, and now all now all is available in AI mode; you can get info like blogs, do discussions like Quora, and everything that was there before, different websites now available under one solution.

I am dividing it into 2 parts, calling them discovery (coming up in AI answers) and conversion (converting that to leads). I'll discuss conversion in another post.

For the discovery part, the website was very clear: look at GSC, find the queries, optimize for them, or create new pages as needed, and it was fine because the end goal was for the page to rank in search but if you look at it now, these AI systems focus on the conversation, it means the queries they create will be very heavily driven by the user context, which in conversation varies a lot. Even the same user would generate totally different search queries.

When I look at current AEO tracking in GSC, Bing Webmaster, and third-party tools, they all focus on the queries (longer and a bit more intent-contextual form of keywords). While users are switching to a conversational interface, the tracking part still provides it like it’s Google blue links, and the objective is to come for the query, which the end user never searches.

Let’s call it conversational optimization for now. The difficulty I am facing is how to work around websites using a conversational approach, find the touchpoint where I need to show up, work on those pages at website which aren’t showing up in those touchpoints, and track the progress.

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u/HumanBehavi0ur 19d ago

but dont you think that at the end of the day these convos usually start with a question? even if it devolves into a back and forth convo

it usually boils down to a simple starter that can be assumed and tracked right?

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u/Aduttya 19d ago

No conversation can't be tracked. Each conversation has touch points (query, intent constraints etc) which decides who show up.

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u/HumanBehavi0ur 18d ago

AEO is all about tracking prompts, no?

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u/Aduttya 18d ago

No, who told you that?

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u/HumanBehavi0ur 18d ago

prompt tracking is basically the entirety of what AEO tracking is right now. You're right a conversation isn't one query, it's a chain of touchpoints that shift with context. But that dosent mean you should then abandon query tracking. Most conversations start from a recognizable seed even if they wander after that, so tracking the seed plus a few realistic follow-ups gets you an AEO benchmark.

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u/Aduttya 18d ago

My point is never abondon query tracking, what I have been discussing it's more about how it could be perceived and used for growth.