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Microsoft published a playbook early this month to help retailers increase visibility in AI search, browsers, and assistants.<\/p>\n
\u201cA guide to AEO and GEO\u201d (PDF<\/a>) from the heads of Microsoft Shopping and Copilot, and Microsoft Advertising, includes and confirms actionable tips worth the read.<\/p>\n Microsoft\u2019s new guide aims to help retailers increase AI visibility.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The rise of AI platforms has created a proliferation of ill-defined acronyms. The guide attempts to clarify two of them:<\/p>\n I question the need for new acronyms, as the concepts have existed for years in traditional search engine optimization. \u201cGEO\u201d is synonymous with \u201cEEAT<\/a>\u201d \u2014 Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness \u2014 Google\u2019s term for instructing human quality raters.<\/p>\n \u201cAEO\u201d is akin to optimizing for featured snippets<\/a> in traditional search results.<\/p>\n The key difference is that GEO and AEO focus on a product\u2019s pre-training data to impact exposure in AI answers.<\/p>\n And GEO extends beyond a site\u2019s content to include external resources such as reviews, Reddit mentions, product-comparison articles, and similar.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n To me, the most useful part of the guide reinforces my article on optimizing product feeds for AI<\/a>. Product feeds and on-page descriptions should clearly address use cases, such as shoes \u201cbest for day hikes above 40 degrees.\u201d<\/p>\n The guide also recommends:<\/p>\n The guide emphasizes the importance of factual entities such as verified customer reviews, certifications, sustainability badges, and partnerships. It warns against using exaggerated or unverifiable claims, stating, \u201cAI systems penalize low-trust language.\u201d<\/p>\n It advises applying social proof consistently across your site and all channels, and verifying any subjective claims about your business or product. For example, if you assert a product is the best in a category, include why, such as \u201caccording to [XYZ\u2019s] tests.\u201d<\/p>\n Per the guide, structured data markup, such as Schema.org<\/a>, is key for AI visibility.<\/p>\n However, I\u2019ve seen no evidence to support that recommendation. The guide does not explain how LLMs use Schema. To my knowledge, AI training data does not store Schema markup, and AI bots crawl text-only content.<\/p>\n Yet for live searches, Schema may be helpful because traditional search engines support it, and LLMs rely on those platforms<\/a>.<\/p>\n Nonetheless, the guide recommends:<\/p>\n While helpful, Microsoft\u2019s \u201cA guide to AEO and GEO\u201d doesn\u2019t introduce anything new. The recommendations align with longstanding SEO tactics and reinforce the views of industry pros.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\nGEO vs. AEO<\/h3>\n
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Intent-driven product data<\/h3>\n
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Social proof<\/h3>\n
Structured data<\/h3>\n
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