What is GEO?

GEO stands for Generative Engine Optimization. In short: you no longer optimise your website only to appear in Google's list, but to appear in an AI's answer.

The difference sounds small but it is big. With classic SEO you want to rank on page one. With GEO you want to be the source that ChatGPT, Perplexity or Google AI Overviews cite when someone asks a question.

SEO gets you into the list, GEO into the answer

The two are connected but not the same. An AI builds its answer from sources it trusts. And it prefers content that is clear, factual and cleanly structured.

Where the AI gets its sources varies: ChatGPT and Copilot pull a lot from the Bing index, Perplexity crawls itself, Google AI Overviews use the Google index. So if you want to be in those answers, you first have to be in the right index at all.

What helps the AI

• Clear structure: headings, short paragraphs, one thought per paragraph.
• Answer format: a question, followed by a short, direct answer.
• Facts over fluff: concrete statements, no marketing padding.
• A clear entity: who you are, what you do, where you are. An AI has to recognise you as a distinct thing.
• Mentions elsewhere: if you are named in other places on the web, that works like a recommendation.
• Technical basics like structured data and an llms.txt.

How do you check this?

The easiest way is to try it. Ask ChatGPT, Perplexity or Gemini about your industry in your region and see whether you show up. If you do not, you know where you stand.

An honest take

GEO is new and moving. There are no guaranteed levers, and the AI providers change their systems constantly. But this already holds true: a clean, understandable, honest website helps SEO and GEO at the same time. Double the benefit for the same work.

The bigger picture is in SEO is not enough anymore: now GEO matters too. And if you want to know where your site stands, take a look at my SEO and GEO analysis.