A business owner shared on a Reddit SEO forum that they paid about US$4,200 to an agency selling “AEO.” Months later they checked what had been done and found links from other sites (backlinks) and meta descriptions, the short blurbs that show up under a page title on Google. Nothing else, by their account. It is an anonymous forum story, not a verified fact, but it leaves a very concrete question: what were they actually buying?
That is the question that matters in your company. An owner should not buy a trendy word or a task list. They should buy results they can see.
AEO stands for answer engine optimization: working so that answers from artificial intelligence mention you and cite you. Many people no longer just search on Google and click links. They also ask an assistant or read the summary an AI-powered search engine puts together. Doing AEO means working so that when your customer asks something about your industry, your company shows up in that answer, by name and with a link to your site.
It is not magic, and it is not an entirely separate discipline. In practice it overlaps a lot with classic SEO, which is the work of getting found on search engines: a site that can be read, content that answers well, and a reputation others confirm. That is why the new name, on its own, does not tell you what you will get.
Before talking about tasks, agree on what change you want to see in the business. There are three an owner recognizes without a technical report.
Being mentioned and cited where your customers search. You can check this simply: write down the questions buyers really ask you, ask them on the search engines and assistants your buyers use, and note whether you show up, how you are described, and who gets recommended instead. Do it at the start and repeat it later. Without that starting snapshot, any improvement is just an opinion.
Leads and quote requests coming in. In B2B, visits don’t make payroll; conversations with buyers do. The work has to connect to forms, calls, emails, or quote requests, and to a simple question: how did you hear about us? If no one can say which leads came through this channel, you are not measuring what matters yet.
Content that answers real questions with something of your own. Not generic text that could live on any site, but what only your company knows: how decisions get made in your industry, what mistakes you see, what people ask you before they buy. That is what a person wants to read, and what makes sense for someone to cite.
Links and meta descriptions are not bad. They can be part of the work. The problem is paying for the task without knowing which result it was supposed to move.
New tools keep appearing that promise near-automatic AEO, even by setting up blogs on brand-new domains so AI will cite them. It sounds fast. But it runs into rules Google has already written.
Google’s spam policies define spam as techniques used to deceive users or manipulate its systems, and they explicitly include attempts to manipulate generative AI responses in Google Search. One of those policies covers scaled content abuse: generating many pages mainly to manipulate rankings rather than to help people, no matter how they are created. Its examples include using generative AI to produce many pages without adding value, and creating multiple sites to hide the scaled nature of the content. A ghost blog on a new domain, written for machines rather than customers, can fall into that.
One clarification, because this gets mixed up a lot. Google’s site reputation policy (often called site reputation abuse) is something else: it applies when third-party content is published on an established site mainly to take advantage of the ranking signals that site has earned. A new domain has no reputation to lend, so the risk with a ghost blog lies in scaled, low-value content, not in that rule.
Google’s guidance on helpful content points the same way: its systems aim to prioritize helpful, reliable information created to benefit people, and SEO helps when it is applied to people-first content, not to content made for search engines. The consequence is a business one: under Google’s spam policies, sites that violate them may rank lower or not appear in results at all. Paying for a shortcut and then paying to undo it means buying twice.
They help you decide with clear criteria, whether you work with us or with another partner. Ask them before you hire anyone, and keep the answers in writing.
If the answers come back as package names instead of criteria, that is your answer. A good vendor can say what they do not know and what depends on things no one controls, like changes in search engines. What they should not do is charge you without saying how you will know whether it worked.
Buying well is half the job. The other half is looking at results with the same criteria every so often: are you cited more where your customers search? Are more worthwhile leads coming in? Does the content answer what your buyers ask? If the answer is no, you adjust or you stop. That is not distrust; it is managing an investment.
If you want to understand what Google looks at in its AI summaries, we cover it in GEO isn’t magic: a B2B checklist for AI Overviews and AI Mode. This piece comes one step earlier: deciding what to buy and how to tell whether it worked.
AEO is the work of getting AI-generated answers to mention and cite your company. In practice it overlaps with SEO: a site that can be read, content that answers well, and a reputation others confirm.
Take a starting snapshot: whether you are cited for your buyers’ real questions, and how many leads and quote requests come through that channel. Then review it every so often with the same criteria.
It is a risky shortcut. If it is many pages made to manipulate rankings rather than help people, it can fall under the scaled content abuse described in Google’s spam policies.
No. They can be part of the work. The problem is paying for them without knowing which business result they were supposed to move.
At Somos Gente Digital we do not sell magic packages. First we listen to what your company needs to sell and what your buyers ask. We agree with you, from the start, on what will be measured and how it connects to leads and sales. We build content with real knowledge of your business, on your site and under your name. And we stay with you, with a clear method, reviewing results together until the business grows.
If you want to work through it with us, reach out through Contact us.
Google talks about people-first content and Main Content: whatever helps the page fulfill its purpose. At SGD we read it as B2B LatAm owners: one URL, one purpose, and your own contribution — not a checklist to “sign” legalese or a ranking tutorial.
68% of LatAm companies that already use AI want to expand it; only 8% of employees feel ready. At SGD the order is different: governance foundations + stack accompaniment (web, portal, ERP), not a generic course or a magic package.
