Generative engine optimization (GEO): what it is, GEO vs SEO, and how to get cited by AI

What is generative engine optimization (GEO)?

Generative engine optimization (GEO, also spelled generative engine optimisation) is work on your content and your presence so AI engines choose you as a source when they write an answer. Classic SEO aims to rank high in a list of ten links. GEO aims to be one of the sources the answer itself relies on, even if nobody clicks the link.

The term comes from a November 2023 research paper, "GEO: Generative Engine Optimization", by researchers from Princeton, Georgia Tech, the Allen Institute for AI and IIT Delhi. It was accepted to KDD 2024, and it tested which changes to a text raise the chance a generative engine uses it in an answer.

Most pages that rank for "GEO" today come from SEO agencies, and most of them only talk about the website. That is half the picture; the other half is below. For a short definition, see the glossary.

What does GEO stand for in AI?

In AI and search, GEO stands for generative engine optimization. A generative engine is an AI system that writes an answer instead of listing links: ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot, Claude, and Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode. Optimization is the work of becoming one of the sources that answer is built from.

The acronym causes confusion because in marketing "geo" has meant geography for years: geo-targeted ads, geofencing, local SEO. If you searched "geo SEO" looking for local search, that is a different discipline. In conversations about AI search since 2023, GEO almost always means generative engine optimization. You will also see AEO (answer engine optimization) and "AI SEO" used for overlapping ideas.

GEO vs SEO vs AEO: what is the difference?

The short answer: SEO is about ranking in a list of links, AEO is about being the direct answer to a question, and GEO is about being a source an AI model cites in a written answer. People search for "GEO SEO" because the two overlap: most GEO work is good SEO, plus the parts of your presence that live off your website. The difference is what counts as success:

It matters what Google itself says. In the guide it published in May 2026, it names AEO and GEO directly:

"From Google Search's perspective, optimizing for generative AI search is optimizing for the search experience, and thus still SEO."Google Search Central, Optimizing your website for generative AI features on Google Search, May 2026

The reason, per Google: AI Overviews and AI Mode are rooted in the same core ranking and quality systems as regular Search. So why talk about GEO at all? Because Google is not the only engine, and "am I cited?" is a different question from "where do I rank?". A site can rank first and not appear in the answer, and a site in fifth place can be cited. That is exactly what the research tested.

AEO vs GEO: what's the difference?

AEO (answer engine optimization) aims to be the one answer to a question: the passage a search engine, voice assistant or chatbot shows as a direct answer. GEO aims to be one of the sources an AI model writes a new answer from. The difference is the shape of the answer: in AEO the answer is your text, in GEO it is a summary of several sources. In our study, the median AI Overview relied on 6 sources.

In practice most people use the two terms almost interchangeably, and the work overlaps: a page built for AEO, with a question and a direct answer, is also a page that is easy to cite. Google names both together in its guide and says that from its Search's perspective both are still SEO. For a short definition and an example, see the glossary: what is AEO.

How do AI engines choose who to cite?

According to Google, its AI features in Search use two techniques. The first is retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), which Google also calls grounding: the model retrieves up-to-date pages from the Search index, reads them and writes an answer based on them, with links. The second is query fan-out: the model runs several related searches at once. In Google's example, "how to fix a lawn that's full of weeds" fans out to "best herbicides for lawns", "remove weeds without chemicals" and "how to prevent weeds in lawn".

So the answer is built from sources that answer sub-questions, not only the original question. In my study of 150 Hebrew business searches, 54% of the links AI Overviews cited were not in the top ten results, and the first organic result was cited in only 38% of overviews. The details are in the AI Overviews article, and fan-out in AI Mode is covered in the AI Mode article.

ChatGPT works on a similar principle. According to OpenAI, when the model decides it needs current information, or when you choose search, it searches the web and links to sources. To be eligible, a site has to allow the OAI-SearchBot crawler, and even then placement is not guaranteed. What else affects ChatGPT citations is in the guide: how to get ChatGPT to cite you.

The same holds for every engine: each company separates a search bot, which decides whether you appear in answers, from a bot that collects content to train models. This is how each one documents them:

So you can block the training bots without disappearing from answers, and if you want to be cited, don't block the search bots. AI Overviews and AI Mode are part of Google Search, so Google-Extended doesn't decide whether you appear in them.

Which of the retrieved pages it cites is decided early. Ahrefs analyzed 1.4 million ChatGPT prompts and found that ChatGPT cited about half of the URLs it retrieved, judging them largely by the title, snippet and URL before opening them. Cited pages had titles closer to the sub-questions ChatGPT generates behind the scenes, and results with natural-language URL slugs were cited 89.78% of the time, against 81.11% for those without. It is a correlation, not a rule, but it is cheap to act on: name your pages the way your buyers ask.

What actually works? What the GEO study found

The researchers took real web pages, changed them with nine methods, and measured how much of their text made it into a generative engine's answer and in what position. The three best methods:

1. Adding quotations from credible sources.
2. Adding statistics instead of general description.
3. Citing sources that back up the claims.

These three methods improved visibility by 30% to 40% on the study's main metric. Keyword stuffing, the best-known SEO tactic, barely improved visibility and lowered it on some metrics.

The most interesting finding for smaller companies: the methods helped lower-ranked sites much more. Citing sources raised the visibility of sites ranked fifth in search results by 115%, while with the same method the visibility of top-ranked sites dropped by 30% on average. GEO is one of the places where a small site can overtake a big one.

An important caveat: this was a 2023 experiment, in English, on engines the researchers built. Today's engines are different. But the direction matches what Google writes today: well-sourced, original content, not tricks.

Generative engine optimization statistics

These are the numbers I rely on. Each comes from a named study with a stated method, and four come from my own study of 150 Hebrew business searches on Google Israel (6 October 2026). Plenty of GEO statistics online have no source; I left those out.

The full method of my study, and what it means for who gets cited, is in the AI Overviews article.

What don't you need to do for GEO?

Google's guide has a whole section on AEO and GEO myths. According to Google, for its Search you can ignore these:

So what does help? Google recommends what it calls non-commodity content: a unique point of view, first-hand experience, something that does more than restate what is already everywhere. Its example: "7 Tips for First-Time Homebuyers" is commodity content; "Why We Waived the Inspection & Saved Money" is not. On the technical side: a page Google can crawl and index, eligible to be shown with a snippet, and not excluded from AI features in the Search Console setting.

And one warning from Google worth remembering when someone offers you a "GEO package": no third-party tool has access to its internal ranking or AI systems.

Why GEO is not only your website

This is where most GEO guides stop. They talk about the website: headings, schema, speed. But AI engines also cite people, posts, videos and discussions. Google itself writes that its AI features can show what is being said about products and services across the web, including in blogs, videos and forum discussions.

The strongest data point here comes from a May 2026 Meltwater and LinkedIn study of 9.5 million citations across six AI platforms: ChatGPT, Google AI Mode and AI Overviews, Gemini, Copilot and Claude. LinkedIn was the second most-cited domain, after YouTube. Four more findings:

• 75% of LinkedIn citations came from member profiles, only 25% from company pages.
• 72% of cited content was text posts, 12% articles and 11% video.
• 51% of cited creators had fewer than 10,000 followers.
• 48% of cited content was published in the previous three months.

Put simply: the engines are not looking for stars. They are looking for practitioners who write consistently, clearly and in their own voice about a defined field. That is exactly what a company website can't provide on its own. So I split GEO into three layers:

1. The website. Pages that answer buyers' questions, with an answer at the top of each section, data and sources. This is the part everyone does.
2. The people. The CEO and the experts in the company, on LinkedIn, with consistent content around 3 to 4 topics. An article published on both the site and LinkedIn is two doors to the same answer. This approach is called founder-led marketing, and it is what our CEO personal branding is built on.
3. What others write about you. Press, podcasts, lists and reviews. Real mentions, earned on merit, not bought links.

An example from our own work: in checks I ran in October 2026, my LinkedIn article on Google AI Mode reached the top ten on Google Israel for the Hebrew "מצב ai" (18,100 searches a month) while the site version was not yet in the top 100. And for the Hebrew query "how to get ChatGPT to cite you", Google's AI Overview cited both my LinkedIn article and the website.

What GEO looks like in a smaller language market

For a Hebrew search, Google looks for a Hebrew answer. In my study, AI Overviews appeared on 94% of 150 Hebrew business searches, and 95% of the sources they cited were in Hebrew. When there aren't enough good Hebrew answers, it turns to English: for the Hebrew "how to appear in AI Overviews", it cited seven English sources and only one in Hebrew.

In many fields there still isn't enough professional content in Hebrew, or in other smaller languages, answering buyers' questions. Whoever writes it now, under their own name and with data, can become the source the engines come back to, even without the strongest site in the field.

How to do GEO optimization: seven steps

GEO optimization is the same work whether you call it GEO, generative engine optimization or AI SEO. This is the order I follow:

1. A question list. Write the 15 to 20 questions buyers ask before they buy, and add the sub-questions: price, comparisons, how to choose, common mistakes, who it is not for. That is your fan-out.
2. A baseline. Run the questions in ChatGPT, Gemini and AI Mode. Note who is cited and whether you are. That is your starting point.
3. One page per core question. A direct 30 to 80 word answer at the top of the page and each section, then the explanation. How to write an answer block.
4. Something only you have. A number from your work, a real case, a small test you ran. That is what makes content non-commodity. And every claim with a source.
5. A name and a date. A real author with a profile, and a visible updated date. Update when something changes.
6. LinkedIn. Publish the same knowledge on the CEO's profile too, consistently, around the same topics. How to get ChatGPT to cite what you write on LinkedIn.
7. Earned mentions. Offer data to journalists, appear on podcasts, answer questions in communities. Don't buy articles and don't buy links.

What not to do: buy a service that promises citations, produce hundreds of pages for every phrasing of a question, or pay for sponsored articles without disclosure. All of these contradict what Google writes, and nobody can promise what a model will cite.

How do you measure GEO?

On Google, the Generative AI performance report in Search Console shows impressions in AI features in Search and Discover. Outside Google there is no official metric yet, so I recommend a fixed manual check: the same question list, once a month, in ChatGPT, Gemini and AI Mode. In my own checks, answers changed even between two runs of the same question on the same day, so look at the trend over a few months, not at a single check. More on measurement, and a worked example with real numbers in our SEO and GEO case study.

How long does GEO take?

There is no single honest answer, and anyone who promises a citation by a certain date is promising something nobody controls. What I see on LinkedIn: it takes 3 to 6 months of consistent presence to get meaningful organic leads. On Google, a new page first has to be indexed, and even then Google writes explicitly that being shown is not guaranteed. So start before your competitors do, and measure from day one.

Is GEO worth it?

It depends on what you are being sold. As a separate product with promised citations, usually not: nobody controls what a model cites, and for Google Search, by Google's own account, it is still SEO. As a way of working, yes, if your buyers research with AI before they buy. According to LinkedIn's B2B guide, 94% of B2B buyers already use generative AI in their research. Three signs it is worth your time:

• Buyers ask questions before they buy. B2B services, software, anything with a vendor shortlist. If people buy on impulse or on price alone, classic SEO and ads matter more.
• You have something only you have. Data, real cases, a point of view. In the study, adding sources and statistics helped most, and you can't add what you don't have.
• You don't rank first today. In the study, the methods helped fifth-ranked sites far more than first-ranked ones.

There is also a reason to think about citations and not only clicks. Pew Research tracked the browsing of 900 US adults in March 2025: when a Google AI summary appeared, they clicked a traditional result in 8% of visits, against 15% without one, and clicked a link inside the summary in only 1%. Google disagrees: according to Liz Reid, head of Google Search (August 2025), total organic click volume from Search to websites has been relatively stable year over year, and "quality clicks" have slightly increased. Either way, many people read the answer without clicking, so it pays to be in it.

And one sign to fix something else first: if your important pages are not in Google's index, no GEO work will get them into AI Overviews or AI Mode. Start in Search Console.

GEO tools and platforms: do you need one?

GEO tools run a fixed list of prompts across AI engines and log who gets mentioned and cited. That is useful for tracking a trend, with two limits worth knowing. First, Google says no third-party tool has access to its internal ranking or AI systems, so a tool sees the answers from the outside, just like you. Second, answers vary: in my own checks, the same question got different answers twice on the same day, so a single snapshot proves little.

Before paying for one, start with what is free: the Generative AI performance report in Search Console for Google, and a monthly manual check of 15 to 20 questions in ChatGPT, Gemini and AI Mode, in a spreadsheet. When the list outgrows what you can check by hand, a tool starts to earn its price.

And if you are considering GEO services from an agency, ask three questions before you sign: do they promise citations (if so, that is a bad sign, because nobody controls that), how will they measure progress every month, and does the work include the people in the company and not only the website? Per the data above, a large share of citations comes from personal profiles.

The bottom line

GEO is not a new field that replaces SEO, and it is not a trick. It is the same work of good content, with one more question: when your buyer asks an AI engine, are you one of the sources in the answer? The answer is built in three places: your website, your people's voices, and what others write about you.