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SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

The practice of making a website the result a search engine chooses to show, without paying for the placement.

SEO covers everything that decides whether a page can be found and whether it deserves to win the query: the technical health that lets a crawler read the site, the content that answers the search better than what currently ranks, and the links and mentions that tell a search engine other people find it credible.

It is distinguished from paid search by where the placement comes from. An ad appears because someone bid on the keyword and stops the moment the budget does; an organic result appears because the engine judged it the best answer, and keeps appearing after the work stops. That difference is why SEO is slow to start and cheap to keep running.

Since 2023 the definition has widened. Search engines now answer directly as well as linking out, so being the source an AI Overview quotes has become part of the same job. That is what AEO, AIO and GEO name.

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