Marketers keep asking if search is finished and if answer engines are the new king. After watching Kipp Bodnar and Kieran Flanagan push Ethan Smith on this exact debate, my view is clear. SEO still drives results, and answer engine optimization (AEO) adds fresh reach. Treat them as one plan with a few tweaks, not rival playbooks.
Search Still Matters, AEO Adds Fuel
Ethan’s stance cut through the noise. SEO is not dying. The numbers support it, and the “ten blue links” are far from gone.
“SEO traffic is not down… maybe half a percent or 1%, but there’s no downward trend.”
“LLMs are growing 100% year-over-year… but it’s still roughly 1/15th the size of search.”
That’s the truth many don’t want to hear. AEO is rising fast, but it’s still much smaller. And the classic search results? Flat to slightly down, not collapsing. As a founder and creator, I’ve seen this pattern before across crypto, social, and ad tech cycles. Growth in a new channel doesn’t kill the last one. It stacks.
Even better, most tactics overlap. Do solid SEO and you often win AEO “for free.” The big difference is off-site work. AEO rewards mentions and citations on the exact pages that answer engines surface for a query.
Where The Real Opportunity Sits
Founders keep telling me clicks are vanishing while search volume climbs. The data Ethan shared doesn’t back a cliff drop. Usage is steady. Click-through is roughly steady. Net effect: stable traffic on average, with variation by site and query. That said, informational queries trigger more AI summaries. Transactional queries still carry ads and strong intent, and that’s where the money is. Focus there.
Here’s the line that should change your roadmap:
“Anyone can win answer engine optimization because off-site is where you can win the money questions.”
Early teams can get cited quickly for “best X for Y with Z integration” if they show up on the right third-party pages. That impact is faster than classic SEO, which favors larger sites with authority. As someone who has built and marketed products for decades, I’ll take faster time-to-impact any day.
On-Site: Keep It Simple, Make It Useful
Forget magic tags and unproven hacks. On-site is about clarity. Internal links, readable pages, clean schema, and content that answers specific product questions. Help centers and feature lists are gold. Think “Does it do X? Does it integrate with Y? Is it built for Z role?”
“The majority of conversions from AEO are because they did SEO well… it just worked for free.”
Technical myths keep popping up. But you don’t need an exotic file format or special markup that no one uses. Make your pages render. Mark up what matters. As ChatGPT moves into actions, mark up forms and buttons. That’s it.
Off-Site: Mentions Beat Generic Links
This is where AEO diverges from old link-chasing. The systems care about the specific URLs they cite for a given question. Your goal: get mentioned on those exact pages.
“In LLMs, it’s the specific citations that are appearing for the prompt… the exact URLs.”
Authority signals are still forming in many answer engines, which is why some surprising sites show up. Don’t guess. Track the citations for the prompts you want and target those pages.
My Playbook For 2025–2027
This plan blends what Kipp, Kieran, and Ethan highlighted with tactics I use across media, social, and SaaS projects.
- Map money terms from paid search, then convert them into questions with an LLM.
- Track citations for those questions; build a target list by URL, not just domain.
- Create feature and integration pages that match real buyer criteria. Use help center depth.
- Mine Reddit, support logs, and sales calls to find ultra-specific questions. Publish practical answers.
- Prioritize ChatGPT and Gemini now; add others only if your audience skews there.
That list works best if you keep testing. Run controlled experiments. Share what moves the needle. Rinse and repeat.
What’s Next
Ethan’s forecast is aggressive but reasonable: search stays flat and vital; AEO triples. Agents will book and buy on your behalf. Video becomes a prime input as models “watch” and parse context. My take: unique, firsthand content becomes currency. If you publish real experience and evidence, both engines and buyers will reward you.
Here’s my conclusion. Stop arguing SEO vs AEO. Treat them as one system. Build pages that answer real questions. Earn mentions on the exact pages answer engines cite. Then test. If you lead with proof and keep shipping, you won’t care which box the click came from—you’ll be too busy growing.
Action step: pick five high-intent questions, track their citations, publish or update the matching answers, and pitch the top cited URLs for mentions. Do it this week. Then measure in 30 days and push harder on what works.
