Acceptance of Circumstances, sarcoma, warriors, fighters, doing good, giving back, paying it forward

Why I’ll Always Feel Like A Cancer (Sarcoma) Patient

July is Sarcoma Awareness Month, and as a 19-year survivor of left abdominal wall sarcoma (diagnosed in September 2006), I still get teary-eyed when I receive e-mails from the Sarcoma Foundation of America about the aforementioned. Not just because of my own sarcoma journey, but because of sarcoma patients I’ve met along the way who did not win their battles and who were outstanding individuals on so many fronts, and because of friends who are still battling sarcoma or being monitored for sarcoma recurrence or metastasis.

For me, having pelvic-area radiation and two tumor-related surgeries to treat my form of sarcoma, as well as reduce risk of metastasis and recurrence, was only just the very beginning of having to deal with the impact of sarcoma. I shared my cancer-impact story on Our Heart Speaks’ website years back, and much of what I mentioned in the story about ongoing health challenges still rings true.

I still daily deal with constant, severe digestive-system issues (it’s why I don’t schedule work meetings early in the morning, because if I’m going to be sick, that’s usually when I am), and I can’t lift anything even slightly heavy because I had most of my stomach muscles removed over the course of seven abdominal-area surgeries, which means I regularly have to ask for help. Another reason I can’t lift heavy things is the risk of causing another incarcerated hernia (one of my emergency bowel resections mentioned in the aforementioned Our Heart Speaks post was necessary because of an incarcerated hernia). I’ve also been told to be careful about lower-body exercises that could cause an incarcerated hernia like swimming (an athletic activity that was a go-to exercise favorite of mine until I dealt with the implications of sarcoma).

I also have been dealing with neuropathy in my feet for the last three years or so. It’s is unknown if pelvic radiation caused this, but a lot of other testing has been done and typical/common causes have all been ruled out. I’m not letting it keep me from one of my favorite activities, walking, though!

What Is Soft Tissue Sarcoma/What Is Sarcoma?

As Memorial Sloan Kettering, an outstanding Cancer Center in the New York City area, explains, “Soft tissue sarcoma is a rare cancer that begins in the soft tissues of the body. Examples of soft tissue include fat, muscles, nerves, tendons, and blood and lymph vessels. Soft tissues can also be contained within organs. Sarcoma can happen in soft tissue anywhere in the body, but 40 percent occur in the arms and legs.

Cancer Treatment Often Isn’t A One And Done Thing

I hope you’ll take two things from this post:

  • A knowledge of what sarcoma is and where/how you can donate to an organization devoted to creating awareness of it and research funds, i.e., the Sarcoma Foundation of America mentioned above.
  • Many individuals who undergo cancer treatment — whether it be sarcoma or some other form of cancer — are never really done dealing with the impact of that cancer. It can have ongoing, life-long implications on one’s health, and in-turn, on their emotional/mental health from dealing with the chronic health issues resulting from it.

Need Inspiration To Keep Dealing With A Health Issue?

Check out our Keep Up The Fight website page, and reach out if there’s a song, person, organization, or quote you’d like us to add to it!

Acceptance of Circumstances, AEO, AI Search, Being Found On Bing, Being Found on Google, keeping up with trends, lead generation, Marketing Planning, online presence, organic SEO, pull marketing, SEO, Understanding Your Environment, website

You May Not Need A Wikipedia Page To Win At AEO, Could Be Your Website Pages Just Need To Think And Act Like One

Why Wikipedia?

Why Are SEO Experts, AEO Experts, and Digital Marketers Talking About Wikipedia So Much In 2025?

Two key factors for all the marketing and AEO hype related to Wikipedia include:

  • Tests and research completed by SEO and AEO (answer engine optimization) experts indicate that often content from a relevant Wikipedia page is more likely to be served up to individuals using AI, answer, and chat search engines than content from the brand-in-question’s, or company-in-question’s, own website.
  • When AI search engines like chat engines were initially taught to crawl and index information, they were trained to do so using Wikipedia content.

Wikipedia Company Page

How To Set Up A Wikipedia Page and Hurdles To Getting Approved For a Company Page

We’re not going to try to recreate the wheel on this one, since this AEO expert did an outstanding job of explaining the many hoops an organization will likely have to jump thru in order for Wikipedia to approve the posting of a company page on their platform.

How To Set Up A Website Page That Might Perform As Well As A Wikipedia Page When It Comes To Answer Engines

How Can I Set Up Website Pages On My Own Website To Mirror Wikipedia Pages?

If it ends up holding true, and honestly it’s far too early to tell, that structuring/setting up your website page to mirror attributes of a Wikipedia page will cause its content to appear more frequently in answers to relevant questions spit back by AI search/chat/answer engines, then the aforementioned set-up work will have been worth it. But, what does the work entail? To structure a website page so that it mirrors Wikipedia page content that AI search/chat/answer engines seem to adore, we advise the following:

  • Employ various levels of headers, as appropriate to break up, title, and segment/categorize various website page content blocks. Think H1, H2, and H3, as explained in this blog post about the importance of using sub-headers related to SEO and AEO.
  • Throughout website page content, include inner-page and inner-post links to relevant content, particularly content that provides additional information on a term or topic.
  • Reference/give credit to external resources used to inform website page content and link to reputable external sites that might answer additional questions that website page readers might have.

In case you hadn’t noticed, we tried to make this website page/blog post mirror a Wikipedia page to some degree, and since we recently had the good fortune of seeing the musical highlighted in this Wikipedia page at the Huntington Theater In Boston with a friend, we’ll use this page as an example. As you’ll see if you visit this hyperlinked page, the page is really easy to read. No paragraphs are crazy long. The page uses a lot of headers/sub-headers to break up and segment/categorize content. Through reference and external links at the bottom, the page also includes links to creditable resources that provide information on where facts and data contained on the page came from. And, throughout the page, hyperlinks are included to relevant Wikipedia or non-Wikipedia pages that contain further information/explanation on a particular topic/particular data included in the Wikipedia page.

This image is a print screen taken of a Wikipedia page for a musical called "The Light In the Piazza." It shows titles and sub-titles, regular text, bolded text, and hyperlinked text and includes an image with a lot of purple and light yellow in it that shows a young woman and young man on a piazza in Italy with a label on the image that reads "The Light In The Piazza."

How To Write Content That AI Search Engines Like To Crawl And Index

When Google first announced and began rolling out Google SGE, we published a blog post about how to write content for that particular AI search engine. You’ll see that the still appropriate advice provided there is very similar to what was provided above, keep your content clean and make it easily digested and understood by both humans and answer engines!

References and External Links

  1. https://www.semrush.com/blog/generative-engine-optimization/
  2. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/wikipedia-one-platform-you-cant-seo-your-way-beutler-ink-fuwzc/?trackingId=GbMlvVt9SU2fswSkpkGT9g%3D%3D
  3. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/localseoguide_its-friday-so-lets-end-the-week-with-a-activity-7339426222956822528-DGjr?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAAFHYEQBT0lx6IRjrP6l3fXO7v_8lhVYZ7g
  4. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/wikipedia-paradox-why-your-business-cant-control-its-most-crawford-axsze/?trackingId=CVy%2FLtPEQMOeLBsEq67cGA%3D%3D
  5. https://www.huntingtontheatre.org/whats-on/the-light-in-the-piazza/

Need Help Understanding How To Increase Your Organization’s Odds Of Being Found Online?

Schedule a complimentary appointment with an SEO expert/AEO expert today!

Acceptance of Circumstances, AEO, AI Search, Being Found On Bing, Being Found on Google, marketing best practices, organic SEO, pull marketing, Quora, Reddit, SEO, Understanding Your Environment

The Two Main Branches Of The Being-Found-Online Tree: SEO and AEO

June 2025 Update To Our Original Blog Post Below: As digital marketers and SEO experts scramble to learn and express all the changes happening in the “being found online” world because of AI, I’m seeing yet another acronym being used related to being found in content served up in AI search/chat/answer engines, and that is GEO.

What Is GEO And How Is It Different From SEO?

According to Google AI Overviews, “SEO (Search Engine Optimization) focuses on optimizing website content for traditional search engines like Google to improve rankings and visibility in search results. GEO (Generative Engine Optimization), on the other hand, focuses on optimizing content for AI-powered search engines and generative AI models like ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews. While both share the goal of increasing online visibility, their strategies and target search engines differ.”

For now, I think it’s safe to say that people are using the acronyms GEO and AEO pretty interchangeably. Read on to learn about AEO!

Original Blog Post:

Every since I learned that Google rolled out Google AI Mode to all of U.S. users of its search tool in late May 2025, I’ve been educating myself as much as possible about the impact. In fact, I just posted the following on LinkedIn:

“This is how I’m looking at the challenge to optimize your organization’s chances of being found online these days. I’m changing my tune a bit. I didn’t think it was so critical a few months back for organizations to optimize for #AIsearchengines #chatbotengines #chatengines #answerengines, or however else you want to refer to search tools that employ #GenerativeAI capabilities, but with the very recent introduction of #GoogleAIMode, I’m seeing more need and urgency to cater to both the aforementioned type of search engines and to #traditionalsearchengines, like your standard Google and Bing search engines. #seo #searchengineoptimization #beingfoundonline #aeo #answerengineoptimization.”

As indicated in our LinkedIn post (shown above), just a few months ago, we didn’t think we needed to be so concerned about how AI search engines might impact how an organization was found online. Why? Because we didn’t think a large enough percentage of “searchers” were using AI search engines (check out this glossary for the definition of AI search engines, and the numerous terms used for AI search engines). But given Google longstanding dominance in the search-engine landscape, we’re pretty sure searchers are going to start switching from the traditional Google search tool to the AI Mode tool, and all marketers and organizations have to be ready for it.

But, while we need to be ready for greater use of AI search engines by searchers, we can’t lose site that many individuals will continue to search using the former, traditional forms of search engines offered by Google, Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, etc. Hence the reason for our image below.

What Is The Overlap Between AEO and SEO?

So, where is the overlap between optimizing your online presence so that information and data you share appears in generative AI results (AEO), but also appears in traditional search results (SEO)?

We plan to write a much more detailed blog post about that, but for now we’ll simply say that the commonality between AEO and SEO is producing and sharing content that answers questions that your target audiences have, whether those questions be about:

  • The broader category/nature of products and services you offer vs. your organization’s specific products and services
  • The specific products and services your organization offers
  • Your organization
  • Challenges or issues that your target audiences have that are tangential (not directly related to your organization and your products and services) but very important to your clients.

And, whether they are answered via ongoing, fresh website blog posts or regularly updated Q & As housed in a website FAQ like ours, or via social media posts or discussion forums like Quora and Reddit, it’s critical to both AEO and SEO that the questions you answer are helpful to your target audiences and not too self-serving!

Need Help Developing And/Or Executing A Strategy To Be Found Online?

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AEO, AI Search, Being Found On Bing, Being Found on Google, keeping up with trends, online presence, organic SEO, pull marketing, Search Engine Optimization, SEO, staying current, Understanding Your Environment

Understanding AI Search Engine Terminology

June 2026 Update:

It’s been a full year since we originally published this blog post dedicated to understanding AI Search Engine Terminology. Since this area continues to evolve rapidly, we felt it was time for an update! Any Text in GREEN below reflects information that was added to the post since we first wrote it.

A big challenge to all marketers today is the number of different terms that are being thrown around related to the use of AI search engines, or what can be called “answer engines.” These are also referred to as LLMs or LLM engines since they are powered on large language models. In addition, these terms aren’t always used consistently and mean different things to different organizations and marketers. To inform our readers about the current AI search engine landscape and help them understand what certain terms truly mean, we’ve put together the below glossary of AI search terms.

AI Search Glossary

  • AEO – while this acronym is also used for non-marketing and non-search-engine-related topics, when applied to search engine optimization (SEO), it’s related to one of the two broad branches of search tools (answer engines) that are available for use by searchers today, and stands for “Answer Engine Optimization.” Explained in this outstanding Better Business Bureau blog post about AEO, AEO practices and tactics focus on creating and sharing content that provides a “direct, informative, and well-structured answer” to a question that a searcher enters into a generative AI interactive, conversational (chat) tool, such as Perplexity, ChatGPT, and Google AI Mode. As we explained in our blog post about generative AI, the whole premise behind AEO is to answer questions searchers have via the online content your organization produces and shares. Don’t lose site of the variety of content AI search engines may pull and provide to question askers — check out our comprehensive list!
  • Answer Engines – as alluded to above, “answer engine” is a term used to describe interactive, conversational tools like Perplexity, ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, and Google Gemini. In lieu of spitting back a long list of links to websites and other online/digital properties (known as SERPs), these answer engines tend to provide content blocks — often without links — that synthesize data from a number of websites to answer the searcher’s question. This can mean that your organization or your content may be mentioned/included in response to an appropriate “prompt,” but a link back to your website, known as a citation won’t always be included.
  • Agentic AI – it’s not yet known what the implications are related to traditional search engines and answer engines, but in the words of Nvidia, agentic AI refers to AI that “uses sophisticated reasoning and iterative planning to autonomously solve complex, multi-step problems. And it’s set to enhance productivity and operations across industries.” As of the date of the revisions to the blog post, many SEO experts are using this term to pertain to a tool that individuals sign up to use that allows the tool to choose and/or buy a product or service on behalf of the tool user.
  • AI Search – this is one of the terms that we were thinking of when we mentioned that different organizations and marketers are using this term differently since AI search can refer to the use of an answer engine like the ones we discussed above to identify external resources and external data related to a particular question, or it can be used to describe searches of organization-owned/internal data (this data may extend to data that the organization shares publicly or enters into digital tools or apps or technology, but ultimately, it’s information owned by or generated by the organization.) An example of this latter case is discussed in this guest blog post by Medullar who offers an AI productivity and collaboration tool for SMBs, and particularly consulting firms and professional-services firms.
  • Chat Search Engine/Chatbot Search Engine – chat search engines/chatbot search engines really are the same thing as answer engines (described above).  They employ the conversational, interactive capability of chatbots, but also the capabilities of providing answers to questions from data they collect/gather across the internet the way that traditional search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo, and DuckDuckGo do. It’s basically a search engine that users chatbot functionality to interact with individuals asking questions vs. just searching using a statement, term, or topic.
  • Chatbot – technology that provides an interface for humans to communicate with that interface via voice commands, text (typed commands) or both. It is considered a form of AI and is employed in online messaging or online chat services used by organizations to answer customer or prospective customer questions like LiveChat ones.
  • Generative AI – generative AI is technology that pulls data/content from a variety of sources and produces (generates!) new content based on what it’s learned. The content can be viewed as a summary or synthesis of information collected by the technology.
  • GEO (Generative AI Optimization) – employing best practices and tactics so that your organization appears in generative AI results; basically, same as AEO with the nuance that instead of answer/AI search engines serving up verbatim the answer that you provide to a question, answer/AI search engines are “citing” your organization because they view you as an expert and are providing a link back to your website as part of their results to a relevant “prompt.”
  • Large Language Models (LLMs) – if you really want to get into the nitty-gritty of understanding how LLMs work, Search Engine Land explains it well. Most organizations/lay people simply need to have a general understanding of this term because it’s often used in regards to answer engines/chatbot engines/generative AI engines because it’s the LLM technology/capability that lets the engines service engine users the way they do. As Search Engine Land states, “The core functionality of LLMs in search is to process queries and produce natural language summaries. Instead of just extracting information from existing documents, these models can generate comprehensive answers while maintaining accuracy and relevance. This is achieved through a unified framework that treats all (search-related) tasks as text generation problems. What makes this approach particularly powerful is its ability to customize answers through natural language prompts. The system first generates an initial set of query results, which the LLM refines and improves.”
  • Mention – this is when the name of your organization gets served up in AI search engine results. This may happen with or without the engine including a link back to your website (citation).
  • Prompt – this is what a user of an answer engine/AI search engine like ChatGPT or Google Gemini enters into the tool to get an answer/results/help/advice, etc. Check out this blog post about why appearing in AI search prompt results may help your organization.
  • RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) – refers to a content-generation method that takes advantage of both information information retrieval and LLM. It’s about producing content that’s both relevant and accurate by combining external data with generative AI capabilities.

Continue to Check Back For AI Search Engine Terminology Updates

We read, listen to, watch everything we can get our hands on these days related to changes in the world of search engine optimization and answer engine optimization. In keeping with the aforementioned, we will continue to update our terminology list, so please continue to check back!

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