Founder & CEO, https://nitter.cf/t.co/SRN2PP28xk. We get brands recommended across AI search and build your organic distribution engine. Free AEO Blueprint ↓
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Joined June 2015
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Vijay C. Jacob retweeted
From Google links to AI answers.
Came across AEO Engine (aeoengine.ai) by @vc_jacob and liked the idea. Still learning how brands show up in AI answers, so this caught my attention.
Do you check Google after an AI recommendation or go with it?
#AISEO #BuildInPublic #AEOengine #Startups
Agree wholeheartedly with everything in this post. Also kinda crazy that all our clients have seen their traffic actually go up over the last year with us despite what’s happening to search overall. Goes to show with an system and the right strategy one can still win 🥇
Since no one wants to say it, I’m going to...
Organic acquisition has changed forever, here's why:
1. Traffic is falling almost everywhere. Across many software companies I've looked at, traffic estimates peaked around April 2025 and then fell, some by around 50%. If yours dropped, it might not be just you.
2. Falling traffic ≠ falling revenue. At VEED, clicks from search have dropped, but revenue from the channel has stayed stable. Find out which visits disappeared before you panic.
3. Brand demand is the moat. VEED was in previous a16z consumer AI rankings but not this year. My impression is that companies relying on generic search are losing ground, and companies with brand and direct traffic are holding up. That's a hypothesis I'm still testing, not a conclusion.
4. Brand search starts somewhere else. Creators, influencers, Meta ads. Gamma's micro-influencers and Higgsfield's sheer volume of content stand out. Paid creator programs work like a portfolio: one outlier video can pay for lots of flops. But volume alone won't hold up once people get sceptical.
5. The best demand is still earned. Someone uses a product, gets a great result and tells a friend. That is still one of the most powerful acquisition mechanisms available. Linear and Notion are the kinds of companies I associate with this. Templates, workflows and communities give that enthusiasm a way to spread.
6. Prosumer software needs cheap acquisition. Lots of prosumer SaaS only works because people arrive free through SEO and word of mouth. If that dries up, ads often can't replace it, because your margins won't allow it. "Just find another channel" can mean rethinking the whole business.
7. AI changes discovery, and it can replace the tool itself. Getting recommended by ChatGPT matters. But people increasingly just get the work done there, like uploading bank statements and asking for a spreadsheet instead of searching for a tool. The takeaway for founders is simple: make your product easy for agents to use. That's the future.
8. AI overviews. Google answers before anyone clicks. AI Overviews put the answer on the results page. Being mentioned is great, but a mention isn't a visit, and a visit isn't a customer. Measure what visibility actually gets you.
9. Ranking #1 can feel like ranking #8. When we went big on SEO in 2020, ads were a small, obvious part of the page. Now ads and AI Overviews fill the first screen. Stop asking where you rank. Ask what sits above you.
10. Google is stuck between two incentives. It has to protect a huge ads business while reinventing search with Gemini. Those goals don't always line up with businesses that rely on organic clicks. Plan around that.
BTW, this isn't a doomer post.
New entrants are still winning with SEO.
I've seen exact-match domains rank for competitive terms with tiny backlink profiles. The opportunity hasn't gone. It's moving.
Our job as founders is to figure out where, and build for that.
Vijay C. Jacob retweeted
Everyone’s been talking about ChatGPT citations shrinking.
Almost nobody noticed what’s showing up instead.
I asked ChatGPT “what is the best aeo agencies?” (typo and all).
AEO Engine made the shortlist, recommended for law firms and businesses that want ongoing execution.
Getting on the list isn’t new., we do this pretty easily for the prompts we care about. But what is new is that the name itself is now a link.
Click “AEO Engine” and you’re on our site. You don’t have to find a source chip or scroll to a footnote. The recommendation is the link.
Same for every other agency on that list. Five names, five clicks away.
For a buyer, that collapses the whole journey. They ask, they get a shortlist, they click. The shortlist is the funnel now.
Two things I’d watch:
- Your analytics may be hiding it. Check whether these clicks come in with a referrer. ChatGPT does add UTMs so they should show up as ai referral traffic, if not they will just land in “direct”.
The link goes to your brand, which usually means your homepage, not the page that answered the question. So your homepage now has to do the job your best landing page used to do.
Can someone tell in 5 seconds who you serve and why you?
How you get on that list hasn’t changed. Third-party mentions, reviews, PR, content that answers the real question, and a site AI can actually read. It’s the work we do every day for ourselves and 50+ clients.
Want to do the same for your site, speak with our team here: aeoengine.ai/schedule-call
Everyone’s been talking about ChatGPT citations shrinking.
Almost nobody noticed what’s showing up instead.
I asked ChatGPT “what is the best aeo agencies?” (typo and all).
AEO Engine made the shortlist, recommended for law firms and businesses that want ongoing execution.
Getting on the list isn’t new., we do this pretty easily for the prompts we care about. But what is new is that the name itself is now a link.
Click “AEO Engine” and you’re on our site. You don’t have to find a source chip or scroll to a footnote. The recommendation is the link.
Same for every other agency on that list. Five names, five clicks away.
For a buyer, that collapses the whole journey. They ask, they get a shortlist, they click. The shortlist is the funnel now.
Two things I’d watch:
- Your analytics may be hiding it. Check whether these clicks come in with a referrer. ChatGPT does add UTMs so they should show up as ai referral traffic, if not they will just land in “direct”.
The link goes to your brand, which usually means your homepage, not the page that answered the question. So your homepage now has to do the job your best landing page used to do.
Can someone tell in 5 seconds who you serve and why you?
How you get on that list hasn’t changed. Third-party mentions, reviews, PR, content that answers the real question, and a site AI can actually read. It’s the work we do every day for ourselves and 50+ clients.
Want to do the same for your site, speak with our team here: aeoengine.ai/schedule-call
This is all very true, this is why a hybrid model is important - human strategy, ai enablement, human in the loop review
How to tank your traffic 2026/2027 the ultimate guide.
➱ Hand your entire SEO stragegy to an LLM with no SEO expertise
➱ Sack off credible content writers for AI article automations
➱ Use AI to generate SEO recommendations with no context
➱ Compensate for AIO decline by increasing content output
➱ Use aggressive GEO/Link building strategies that yield old-school styles of link spam
➱ Faking E-E-A-T / YMYL with fake authors, credentials, socials
➱ Vibe coding a new website without proper planning & tech stack considerations
➱ Sit still by reducing or pausing SEO investment whilst clicks are at a premium
➱ Use aggresive GEO citation spam to build fake brand or exagerated brand signals
➱ Building un-managed programmatic content spam funnels
➱ Leaving antiquidated UX issues in place
➱ Handing your SEO over to new "AI SEO" platforms that claim to scale traffic with minimal effort / no effort for a low $ amount
The reality?
➟ SEO isn't dying BUT getting clicks is harder
➟ Businesses are cutting SEO costs by using AI and then paying for the mistake later on
➟ Google searches are still the majority of where people go, not LLMs
➟ Google is trying to close the gate on AI content / AI content spam because it creates a self-consumption problem and is often abused by spammers
➟ SEO is MORE about building a brand by unifying efforts across multiple channels - EFFORT is the key thing here along with brand
➟ Content isn't just weighted on quality, it's weighted on effort, effort can be determined by unique added value, media embeds, interactive page elements, aggregated research or insights data
Bringing AI to the table for SEO is fine if done properly.
I wrote an article on it, enjoy
assertive-media.co.uk/blog/u…
I also did one not too long ago about using AI for keyword research
assertive-media.co.uk/blog/c…
Imagine inventing the car…..then making someone retrace every journey on horseback to confirm you got there.
Facts need verification, but “manual” doesn’t make it any better than automatic, as long as there’s a system in place… we just need better brakes
Google updates the AI content guidelines to say you should "manually factcheck and review all AI-generated content for accuracy and trustworthiness before publishing"
seroundtable.com/google-upda…
a neglected site does not need a revenue pitch. it needs to be findable.
we ran this on dancina. website traffic, 16 jun to 21 sep.
before: 29 people a week.
after: 186 people a week.
more people through the door every week. that is the whole chart.
that is the core objective before revenue even shows up. if google cannot find you, answer engines will not either. aeo only works if seo already worked for you.
why it works: answer engines and google both pull from the same web. if you are not in the index, forget citations, forget traffic, forget the close.
aeo only works if seo worked for you. first get into google. then you get a shot at chatgpt.
Vijay C. Jacob retweeted
[Hiring Remote] AEO Engine has surpassed $1.5M ARR in 9 months with 30+ case studies.
We're building to 10x that in the next 12 months and hiring a US-based Client Success Manager to help us get there👇
AEO Engine is the best AI Search agency for law firms, accounting firms and real estate businesses helping them get recommended by ChatGPT, Google AI and the other AI search engines their customers increasingly use to make decisions.
The idea behind AEO Engine is pretty simple.
Small and mid sized businesses shouldn't lose just because the Goliath down the street has a bigger marketing budget.
We want the better business to win the recommendation.
And we have the results to prove it works.
The Offer:
Remote US. Full time contractor.
$72K to $78K base.
$102K to $108K OTE.
10% uncapped commission on every client upgrade you close.
This is not a support role.
You'll own a book of roughly 30 to 40 client relationships.
You'll know how those businesses work.
You'll read their dashboards before they do.
When something is stuck, you'll figure out why and come back with the answer before they have to ask.
Our SEO team, platform and 40+ AI agents handle the technical execution.
Your job is to become the person a managing partner trusts to answer two questions:
- What changed?
- And what are we doing next?
If you've spent 3+ years owning client relationships at an SEO or marketing agency, we should talk.
If you've managed law firm clients, even better.
The thing we screen hardest for is attention to detail.
So there's a small test built into the application.
Include #AEOENGINE at the end of your note so we know you actually read this far ;)
The process is intentionally fast.
30 minute screening call.
60 minute working session on a real account with one of the founders.
Decision in days, not weeks.
Apply at aeoengine.ai/careers
We make exceptions on comp for A-players.
-Vijay & Dan
Co-founders, AEO Engine
[Hiring Remote] AEO Engine has surpassed $1.5M ARR in 9 months with 30+ case studies.
We're building to 10x that in the next 12 months and hiring a US-based Client Success Manager to help us get there👇
AEO Engine is the best AI Search agency for law firms, accounting firms and real estate businesses helping them get recommended by ChatGPT, Google AI and the other AI search engines their customers increasingly use to make decisions.
The idea behind AEO Engine is pretty simple.
Small and mid sized businesses shouldn't lose just because the Goliath down the street has a bigger marketing budget.
We want the better business to win the recommendation.
And we have the results to prove it works.
The Offer:
Remote US. Full time contractor.
$72K to $78K base.
$102K to $108K OTE.
10% uncapped commission on every client upgrade you close.
This is not a support role.
You'll own a book of roughly 30 to 40 client relationships.
You'll know how those businesses work.
You'll read their dashboards before they do.
When something is stuck, you'll figure out why and come back with the answer before they have to ask.
Our SEO team, platform and 40+ AI agents handle the technical execution.
Your job is to become the person a managing partner trusts to answer two questions:
- What changed?
- And what are we doing next?
If you've spent 3+ years owning client relationships at an SEO or marketing agency, we should talk.
If you've managed law firm clients, even better.
The thing we screen hardest for is attention to detail.
So there's a small test built into the application.
Include #AEOENGINE at the end of your note so we know you actually read this far ;)
The process is intentionally fast.
30 minute screening call.
60 minute working session on a real account with one of the founders.
Decision in days, not weeks.
Apply at aeoengine.ai/careers
We make exceptions on comp for A-players.
-Vijay & Dan
Co-founders, AEO Engine
Vijay C. Jacob retweeted
We are hiring for AEO Engine:
- Fully Remote US Based CSM
- Comp: $72,000 to $78,000 base, $102,000 to $108,000 on target, uncapped growth.
- 3-5 years of experience working for an SEO or Marketing Agency
If you think the future of marketing is services, this is the spot for you. Apply (below):
