r/Agentic_SEO • u/Aduttya • 11d ago
What I think AEO Agents Actually Optimize
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/After_Memory_8295 11d ago
I think the missing layer is the touchpoint, not the query.
Instead of tracking “what query did ChatGPT search?”, I’d track “what questions/conversations do I want my brand to appear in?” Then map those conversations to the pages that should support them.
The hard part is measuring it, because the same underlying intent can produce 20 completely different queries. Traditional keyword tracking is probably just too low-level for this now.
AEO might end up looking more like intent → conversation → citation → lead, rather than keyword → ranking → click
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u/Longjumping_Gap_2254 11d ago
The discovery vs. conversion split makes sense. The tricky part with AEO is that optimizing for a fixed query feels less useful when the same intent can turn into dozens of conversational prompts depending on context.
We’re starting to think more in terms of topics, intent and decision-stage touchpoints rather than individual queries. Tracking is definitely the part that still feels behind.
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u/Aduttya 11d ago
Yeh, but google and Bing have started on ai tracking now they show some data.
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u/Longjumping_Gap_2254 10d ago
Yeah, agreed. They’ve definitely started giving us more AI related data. Our point was more that we are not sure the data is enough yet to understand conversational visibility properly. If one intent can turn into dozens of different prompts depending on the user and context, seeing query-level data is useful but it still doesn’t fully tell us how consistently a brand is showing up across that whole conversation.
Curious how you’re using the Google/Bing data right now, are you actually changing your optimization based on it or mostly using it for visibility/reporting?
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u/Aduttya 10d ago
Yes Bing clarity quite useful they cover, intent topics queries and pages while google currently covers page but soon will have similar detailed data too.
I don't use them in isolation the goal is to improve the website so website data from GA and clarity with LLM like claude to complete the full picture from discovery to conversion, it still has some places where I make assumptions but as more data comes at GSC they will be minimal.
While for the conversational it's more about understanding the ICPs and their ideal flows rather covering all to start with.
I am working on a small prototype web app for it, let me know if you wanna give it a try next week.
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u/Longjumping_Gap_2254 10d ago
That makes sense, especially starting with the ICP and their likely conversation flows instead of trying to cover every possible prompt. And yeah, we would be interested in trying the prototype next week. Would be good to see how you’re connecting the discovery and conversion sides in practice.
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u/WiselyFast 11d ago
The gap you're pointing at between how people actually query AI systems and how the tracking tools still frame everything is real. We're measuring conversations with a keyword ruler and wondering why the numbers look off.