How long does AEO and GEO take to work?

Changes to your site and listings are usually picked up by Google and the assistants within a few weeks. Winning the answer box for your core questions typically takes a quarter, because the page has to rank first. Being named by the assistants for a specific question often happens within the same quarter if the facts are in place; building the review base that makes it stick takes longer.

What moves first

Your Google Business Profile: category, hours, services. Days.
Titles and descriptions on your pages: one to three weeks for Google to recrawl and show them.
Structured data and crawler access: the next time each assistant reads the site, usually inside a month.
The featured snippet or People Also Ask on a question page: four to twelve weeks after the page ranks.
Assistant recommendations: a month or two after the site and listings agree, sooner in Perplexity, which recrawls often.

What slows it down

A site the crawlers cannot read. Listings that disagree with the site. Pages that hedge instead of answering. Old reviews and no new ones. And changing the facts every month, which resets the agreement the assistants are looking for.

How we report it

Every month: the questions you hold the box for in Search Console, the assistants that name you for your core questions, and the visits from AI assistants in Google Analytics. The first month is a baseline; the third month is where most clients see the first box and the first mention.

Questions people ask

Can it be faster?

On a site that already ranks and only needs the answers rewritten, a snippet can appear in two or three weeks. On a site that has never been indexed properly, the SEO foundation comes first.

Does it keep working once it is won?

A held snippet or mention stays as long as the page stays the best answer. Competitors can take it back with a better page, which is why the monthly check matters.

What if nothing moves after three months?

Then something in the foundation is wrong, usually crawler access, indexing, or listings that contradict the site. The audit finds it.

Want this done for you?

This is the work we do for every client: search, answer engines, and AI assistants, on one plan with one monthly report. Tell us about your business and we will tell you what we would do first.

Let’s talk