{
  "id": "A03",
  "url": "https://cartforagents.com/guides/geo-vs-seo",
  "title": "SEO, AEO, GEO and ACO: which merchant job does each cover?",
  "description": "Match search indexing, answer citation, product evidence and purchase execution to the responsible team and a measurable outcome.",
  "answer": "SEO gets your pages crawled, indexed and shown in search; AEO and GEO are industry names for getting your content used or cited inside AI-written answers; ACO is a newer name for making product records eligible, accurate and buyable by AI shopping agents. On a Shopify store these are four jobs with different owners and different checks: whoever runs the site, whoever writes the content, and whoever owns product data and operations. Google says its AI features need no extra AI-specific optimization beyond normal SEO, so start from good SEO and add the product-data job on top.",
  "take": "For a product brand, the job that most often has no owner is ACO: keeping product facts complete and true everywhere they're copied. SEO and content usually belong to someone; product data usually belongs to nobody.",
  "summary": "Four acronyms, and every vendor uses them differently. Underneath them are four separate jobs, and on a small Shopify store they usually land on different people. Here is which job is which, who should own it, and what you can check to know it got done.",
  "claims": [
    {
      "text": "Google says SEO best practices remain relevant for AI Overviews and AI Mode, that there are no additional requirements to appear in them, that both may use a \"query fan-out\" technique of related searches, and that a page must be indexed and eligible to be shown in Google Search with a snippet to be a supporting link.",
      "source_title": "Google Search Central: AI features and your website",
      "source_url": "https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/ai-features",
      "source_date": "2026-10-27",
      "method": "documented",
      "limitation": "Living documentation (page shows last updated 2025-12-10); the date is our check date. It covers Google Search AI features only, and says indexing and serving are not guaranteed."
    },
    {
      "text": "Google says you do not need new machine-readable files, AI text files or markup to appear in these features, and that there is no special schema.org structured data to add. Its listed SEO basics include allowing crawling, keeping important content in text, matching structured data to visible text, and keeping Merchant Center and Business Profile information up to date.",
      "source_title": "Google Search Central: AI features and your website, SEO best practices",
      "source_url": "https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/ai-features",
      "source_date": "2026-10-27",
      "method": "documented",
      "limitation": "Covers Google Search. It does not describe how ChatGPT, Copilot or other assistants read pages."
    },
    {
      "text": "The term Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) was introduced in a research paper by Aggarwal and co-authors (first submitted 16 November 2023, v3 28 June 2024, accepted to KDD 2024) as a framework to help content creators improve their visibility in generative engine responses.",
      "source_title": "Aggarwal et al.: GEO: Generative Engine Optimization (arXiv 2311.09735)",
      "source_url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2311.09735",
      "source_date": "2024-06-28",
      "method": "documented",
      "limitation": "The paper measures visibility of sources in generated answers on a benchmark, not product selection or purchases."
    },
    {
      "text": "ReFiBuy defines Agentic Commerce Optimization (ACO) as making products understandable, eligible and competitive in AI-powered shopping environments, says it named and defined the discipline, and contrasts it with SEO (ranking indexed pages) and GEO (citing indexed content).",
      "source_title": "ReFiBuy: What is Agentic Commerce Optimization?",
      "source_url": "https://refibuy.ai/guides/what-is-agentic-commerce-optimization",
      "source_date": "2026-10-27",
      "method": "vendor-claim",
      "limitation": "A vendor's own definition and origin claim; we have not verified who used the term first."
    },
    {
      "text": "Shopify says eligible products are syndicated through Shopify Catalog with title, description, options, images, price, availability and other key attributes, and that blocking AI crawlers in robots.txt affects only open-web discoverability, not the product data Shopify Catalog sends to activated agentic storefronts.",
      "source_title": "Shopify Help Center: Shopify Catalog and product discovery for agentic storefronts",
      "source_url": "https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/online-sales-channels/agentic-storefronts/products",
      "source_date": "2026-10-27",
      "method": "documented",
      "limitation": "Living documentation. It describes what Shopify sends, not how any assistant uses it."
    },
    {
      "text": "Shopify says every store automatically serves /agents.md, /llms.txt and /llms-full.txt, and that these agent discovery files are separate from Shopify Catalog and do not replace its capabilities.",
      "source_title": "Shopify Help Center: Shopify Catalog and product discovery for agentic storefronts, Understanding your store information that AI agents can find",
      "source_url": "https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/online-sales-channels/agentic-storefronts/products",
      "source_date": "2026-10-27",
      "method": "documented",
      "limitation": "Says what Shopify serves, not whether any assistant reads these files."
    },
    {
      "text": "Shopify says some Global Catalog response fields are generated or enriched by Shopify and marked Inferred, and should be treated as discovery and merchandising signals, not merchant-authored source text.",
      "source_title": "Shopify: Global Catalog MCP, Inferred response fields",
      "source_url": "https://shopify.dev/docs/agents/catalog/global-catalog",
      "source_date": "2026-10-27",
      "method": "documented",
      "limitation": "Living developer documentation. It does not say how assistants use these fields."
    },
    {
      "text": "Shopify says agentic storefronts often re-rank results based on their own logic, so its search preview is a directional signal, not an exact prediction.",
      "source_title": "Shopify Help Center: Managing agentic storefronts, Reviewing your products' discoverability and ranking",
      "source_url": "https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/online-sales-channels/agentic-storefronts/agentic-home",
      "source_date": "2026-10-27",
      "method": "documented",
      "limitation": "Living documentation; does not describe any channel's ranking."
    },
    {
      "text": "ChatGPT ranks the merchants offering a product on factors like availability, price, quality and whether they are the maker or primary seller, separately from deciding which products appear. When choosing products it considers structured metadata from first- and third-party providers and other third-party content; for merchants on Shopify, product data is integrated through Shopify Catalog.",
      "source_title": "OpenAI Help Center: Shopping with ChatGPT Search, How merchants are selected",
      "source_url": "https://help.openai.com/en/articles/11128490-shopping-with-chatgpt-search",
      "source_date": "2026-10-27",
      "method": "documented",
      "limitation": "Living help article; it lists factors, not weights."
    },
    {
      "text": "Google's Store Quality program scores shipping, returns, browsing and purchase experience, and says merchants are not penalized for not meeting a level; they just do not receive the program's benefits.",
      "source_title": "Google Merchant Center Help: About the Store Quality program",
      "source_url": "https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/14261098?hl=en",
      "source_date": "2026-10-27",
      "method": "documented",
      "limitation": "Describes a Merchant Center program and badge, not an AI ranking rule."
    },
    {
      "text": "Google Shopping says results labeled \"Top recommendations\" are selected based on relevance to the search, ratings, price and product features.",
      "source_title": "Google Shopping Help: Understand how shopping results are generated",
      "source_url": "https://support.google.com/googleshopping/answer/15456476?hl=en",
      "source_date": "2026-10-27",
      "method": "documented",
      "limitation": "Google Shopping only; lists inputs, not weights, and should not be extended to every Gemini surface."
    },
    {
      "text": "For the search \"humidifier for dry winter air large room quiet top fill\", a decibel figure appeared in the description of 4 of 10 listings and in the description or Shopify-generated metadata of 6 of 10; no title had one.",
      "source_title": "Cart for Agents: Receipts cited by our guides (Shopify agent-catalog snapshot, Oct 26, 2026)",
      "source_url": "https://cartforagents.com/research/agent-shopping-research#receipts-cited-by-our-guides",
      "source_date": "2026-10-26",
      "method": "observed",
      "limitation": "One unpersonalized catalog search; not a sample of the category and not a ChatGPT result."
    }
  ],
  "sources": [
    {
      "title": "Google Search Central: AI features and your website",
      "url": "https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/ai-features",
      "accessed": "2026-10-27"
    },
    {
      "title": "Google Shopping Help: Understand how shopping results are generated",
      "url": "https://support.google.com/googleshopping/answer/15456476?hl=en",
      "accessed": "2026-10-27"
    },
    {
      "title": "Google Merchant Center Help: About the Store Quality program",
      "url": "https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/14261098?hl=en",
      "accessed": "2026-10-27"
    },
    {
      "title": "OpenAI Help Center: Shopping with ChatGPT Search",
      "url": "https://help.openai.com/en/articles/11128490-shopping-with-chatgpt-search",
      "accessed": "2026-10-27"
    },
    {
      "title": "Shopify Help Center: Managing agentic storefronts",
      "url": "https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/online-sales-channels/agentic-storefronts/agentic-home",
      "accessed": "2026-10-27"
    },
    {
      "title": "Shopify Help Center: Shopify Catalog and product discovery for agentic storefronts",
      "url": "https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/online-sales-channels/agentic-storefronts/products",
      "accessed": "2026-10-27"
    },
    {
      "title": "Shopify: Global Catalog MCP",
      "url": "https://shopify.dev/docs/agents/catalog/global-catalog",
      "accessed": "2026-10-27"
    },
    {
      "title": "Aggarwal et al.: GEO: Generative Engine Optimization (arXiv 2311.09735)",
      "url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2311.09735",
      "accessed": "2026-10-27"
    },
    {
      "title": "ReFiBuy: What is Agentic Commerce Optimization?",
      "url": "https://refibuy.ai/guides/what-is-agentic-commerce-optimization",
      "accessed": "2026-10-27"
    },
    {
      "title": "Cart for Agents: Receipts cited by our guides",
      "url": "https://cartforagents.com/research/agent-shopping-research#receipts-cited-by-our-guides",
      "accessed": "2026-10-27"
    }
  ],
  "limitations": [
    "AEO, GEO and ACO have no official or standards-body definitions. The split of jobs and owners on this page is our proposal for a small Shopify store, not an industry standard.",
    "Only Google publishes guidance on how its AI search features relate to SEO. No platform publishes ranking weights for AI answers or AI shopping results.",
    "Platform documentation was checked on 2026-10-27. Routes, settings and rollout change; re-check before acting.",
    "The worked case uses one unpersonalized Shopify catalog search from October 26, 2026. It shows what a record said, not what any assistant told a shopper.",
    "Store and brand names are withheld."
  ],
  "related": [
    "https://cartforagents.com/guides/agentic-commerce",
    "https://cartforagents.com/guides/generative-engine-optimization-ecommerce",
    "https://cartforagents.com/guides/ai-shopping-agent",
    "https://cartforagents.com/guides/aco-vs-geo",
    "https://cartforagents.com/guides/agent-commerce-optimization",
    "https://cartforagents.com/guides/agent-ready-product-data"
  ],
  "published": "2026-10-27",
  "updated": "2026-10-27",
  "checked": "2026-10-27",
  "kind": "guide"
}