Short answer: GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) is the work of improving how a brand, a person or a piece of content can be understood, retrieved and cited by search experiences that generate answers with AI: ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, Copilot or Grok. It is not training ChatGPT on your website and it is not buying a ranking. It combines SEO fundamentals, useful content, a coherent entity, first-party sources, legitimate external mentions and repeated measurement. A serious practice records what it observed and admits what it does not control.
Why another acronym
Classic search returns links. ChatGPT with search, Perplexity, Gemini and Google's generative experiences synthesise an answer and show a few sources. A brand no longer competes only for a click. It competes to be understood, represented accurately and, where relevant, included as a source or an option.
The surface is new; most of the work is not. Google recommends keeping SEO best practices for its generative experiences, creating original and useful content, allowing crawling and being wary of supposed GEO tricks. Renaming every task does not make it new.
GEO, AEO, LLMO and "SEO for AI"
| Term | What it tries to describe | Risk of misuse |
|---|---|---|
| SEO | Discovery and performance in search engines | Reducing it to rankings and forgetting usefulness |
| AEO | Optimising to be the direct answer | Promising an answer you do not control |
| GEO | Visibility in generative engines | Selling basic SEO as new tactics |
| LLMO | How a language model understands a brand | Talking as if you could modify the model |
| SEO for AI | A label the market understands | Treating every platform as if it worked the same way |
The labels overlap. The useful question is not which one wins, but which decision the business needs and which evidence whoever helps you can keep.
What can be observed
A measurement can record:
- whether the brand appears for a specific question;
- whether it is presented as an option or explicitly recommended;
- its position in a list, when there is one;
- which facts the answer states about the brand;
- what it omits or misrepresents;
- which domains and pages it shows as sources;
- which competitors appear for the same query;
- how much it changes across platforms, dates, regions and languages;
- which gaps depend on your own assets and which on third parties.
Every figure needs context. "The brand appeared in 8 of 24 answers" describes a sample. It does not mean a third of the market share or that one in three buyers will see it.
What no GEO agency can promise
No external provider organically controls:
- that ChatGPT mentions a brand;
- a fixed position;
- that the same answer will hold tomorrow;
- that a specific page caused a mention;
- that a citation produces traffic;
- that traffic produces a sale;
- that a model uses a source because it contains a certain schema.
Be equally wary of metrics presented as internal. Google states that no external tool has access to its ranking or AI systems. A score can summarise a process, but it must show the data and rules underneath.
How a defensible process works
- Start with the decision. Not with a hundred prompts: with what you need to decide.
- Freeze the questions. Text, origin, buying stage, language, region, brand or no brand, version. Putting your company name in the question makes it far more likely to appear, and measures nothing.
- Observe more than once. Repeat by platform and date, keep the errors, never replace a missing answer with an inference.
- Keep the evidence. Platform, date, question, full answer, visible sources and relevant conditions (web search on or off).
- Separate finding from action. A source appears: that is an observation. "We should publish a guide" is a recommendation. Between them there must be a plausible mechanism, client control, cost, an owner and a way to check again.
The role of your own website
The website is not a file you fill in for a machine. It is the source where a brand explains, with the most control, its identity, its offer, its prices and conditions, verifiable facts, questions and limits, cases with permission, authorship and dates, and structured data that matches the visible content. A clear website helps people, search engines, agents and retrieval systems. It does not force an assistant to cite it.
The role of external sources
Models can show media, comparison sites, documentation, communities, institutions and other pages. The right reaction is not to manufacture mentions. A brand can correct wrong public information, give facts and sources to journalists, take part with a real identity and real experience, publish a disclosed commercial collaboration, create useful documentation, ask a legitimate directory to update its data, or do nothing when there is neither a right nor a useful contribution. Fake profiles, fake reviews, coordinated votes and undisclosed paid links create legal, reputational and platform risk. They are not part of a serious method.
How to evaluate an agency or a tool
Ask for a concrete answer to these ten questions:
- Can I see the original answer, the date and the source behind each figure?
- How do you choose the questions and avoid brand bias?
- How many rounds do you run and how do you show variability?
- Do you separate mention, recommendation and citation?
- What does each metric mean and what is its denominator?
- Which part of the work does the client control?
- How do you treat errors, empty answers and platform changes?
- Can I export the data?
- What do you not guarantee?
- Who publishes an external action and under which identity?
If the answer is only "we have a proprietary algorithm", the part that lets you trust it is still missing.
Do I need GEO if I already do SEO?
You probably do not need two isolated teams doing the same work. You may need a new layer of observation. Solid SEO already improves crawling, architecture, content, links, reputation and experience. GEO adds questions and answers as a measurement surface, reviews brand representation and connects visible sources to decisions. When the diagnosis finds a technical or editorial problem, the work usually goes back to content, product or the website.
Frequently asked questions
Does GEO replace SEO? No. It shares most of its fundamentals and adds new observation surfaces.
Can I appear in ChatGPT if I block GPTBot? OpenAI separates its search crawler, OAI-SearchBot, from other uses. If you want a public page to be discoverable and citable in ChatGPT search, its documentation recommends not blocking OAI-SearchBot. Policies for other crawlers are decided separately. Allowing crawling does not guarantee inclusion.
Do I need an llms.txt file? Not as a priority. Google recommends focusing on SEO, useful content and crawlability rather than unnecessary AI files.
How long does it take? There is no universal timeline. First a baseline, then actions the business controls, then measurement again. Timing depends on crawling, publication, third parties, competition and platform changes.
Next step
If you want to know how your brand appears today, start by measuring it with unbranded questions on two platforms and two dates. Do it by hand with the twenty-minute method, or request a free review: three questions in your category, two platforms, one reading by email.