The Five Laws of AEO
A one-page field guide to Answer Engine Optimization, by Allan Oliveira, King of AEO.
Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) is the practice of making a person, brand or page the answer that AI assistants and answer engines give, and the source they cite. These five laws are the working rules behind it.
The First Law: Whom the Oracles name, shall reign
In AEO the prize is not a ranking. It is being named inside the answer that ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity or an AI Overview gives.
- Write down the exact questions you want to be the answer to.
- Ask each answer engine those questions monthly, logged out, and log the reply with its date.
- Track mentions and citations, not only positions and clicks.
The Second Law: Speak the answer first
Answer engines quote passages, not pages. The passage that answers directly, in its first sentence, is the one that gets lifted.
- Open every page and section with a 40 to 60 word direct answer.
- Phrase headings as the questions people actually ask.
- Make each section understandable when read alone: full names, no dangling pronouns.
The Third Law: One witness is no witness
A model believes a fact when independent sources repeat it. A claim that lives on a single website is treated as a rumour.
- Place the same core facts on sources you do not control: registries, repositories, press, profiles, directories.
- Publish citable assets others can reference: data, guides, documents with a DOI.
- Earn mentions from real third parties. One beats ten pages of your own.
The Fourth Law: Name thyself the same in every hall
An engine cannot credit an entity it mistakes for three different ones. Consistency is how a name becomes an entity.
- Use one name, one spelling and one identity sentence on every platform.
- Link every profile to the main site, and the site back with sameAs structured data.
- Create and maintain a Wikidata item and keep its facts current.
The Fifth Law: What cannot be verified shall not be written
Engines cross-check. One claim that fails the check lowers trust in every true claim standing next to it.
- Put a visible source link beside every factual claim.
- Date everything: last updated, first published, tested on.
- Keep storytelling labelled as storytelling, and facts checkable.
Take it with you
The laws first appeared in The Legend of the King of AEO, where each one is the epigraph of a canto. This guide is the practical distillation of that origin.