What is GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation)?

Short answer: Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) is the practice of making your content and brand easy for AI answer engines, such as Google AI Overviews and AI Mode, ChatGPT search and Perplexity, to find, understand and cite. The term comes from a 2023 research paper by researchers at Princeton and IIT Delhi. In practice, GEO builds on good SEO: crawlable pages, clear answers, evidence and a consistent brand across the web.

What is generative engine optimisation?

A traditional search engine shows a list of links. A generative engine writes an answer and, usually, cites a few sources inside or beside it. Generative engine optimisation is about being one of those sources, and about making sure the answer describes your business accurately.

That changes what “winning” means. In classic SEO you want position one. In GEO you want three things:

• Inclusion: the AI system can access and use your page.
• Citation: your page is linked as a source in the answer.
• Accurate mention: when someone asks about your category, your brand is named and described correctly, even without a link.

You will also see the spelling “optimization” and related terms such as AEO (answer engine optimisation) and LLM SEO. I compare them in SEO vs AEO vs GEO.

Where the term GEO came from

The name comes from the paper GEO: Generative Engine Optimization by Pranjal Aggarwal, Vishvak Murahari and colleagues from Princeton University and IIT Delhi. It was first posted in November 2023 and later published at KDD 2024, a major data mining conference.

The researchers built a benchmark of 10,000 queries and tested ways of rewriting content to see what made it more visible in AI-generated answers. Their main findings, as reported in the paper:

• Some methods increased visibility by up to 40 percent on their own metric.
• Adding quotations from credible sources, adding relevant statistics and citing sources were among the most effective methods.
• Keyword stuffing, an old SEO habit, did little or made things worse.
• What worked best varied by topic.

Treat this as a useful direction, not a rulebook. The tests ran on research setups and on Perplexity at that time, and AI search products have changed a lot since 2023.

How AI answers pick their sources

Each platform works differently, but they share a pattern: retrieve pages from an index, then have a language model write an answer from them. If your page is not in the index, it cannot be cited.

Google AI Overviews and AI Mode

Google says there are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode. A page must be indexed and eligible to show in Search with a snippet. Google also says you do not need new machine-readable files, AI text files or special markup. Both features may use “query fan-out”, running several related searches across subtopics, which means pages that answer specific sub-questions well can be cited even if they do not rank first for the main query.

ChatGPT search

OpenAI uses a crawler called OAI-SearchBot for ChatGPT search. Its crawler documentation says sites that block OAI-SearchBot will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers, though they can still appear as navigational links. GPTBot is separate and relates to model training. ChatGPT search also uses third-party search providers, so being well indexed in other search engines, including Bing, helps.

Perplexity

Perplexity’s PerplexityBot crawls pages to surface and link them in Perplexity’s answers, and Perplexity says it is not used to train foundation models. If you block it, you make it harder to be cited there.

Practical GEO steps for a business website

Here is the order I work in. None of it is magic, and most of it also improves normal SEO and conversion rate.

1. Check access. Make sure robots.txt and your firewall or CDN do not block Googlebot, Bingbot, OAI-SearchBot or PerplexityBot. Blocking GPTBot or Google-Extended is a separate choice about training and Gemini, not about search.
2. Get indexed everywhere. Verify your site in Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools and submit your sitemap to both.
3. Answer first. Open important pages with a short, direct answer to the main question, then add detail. AI systems quote clear, self-contained passages.
4. Add evidence. Cite credible sources, include real numbers where you have them and quote experts. This matches what the GEO paper found useful. Never invent statistics.
5. Cover the sub-questions. Think about what people ask next: cost, comparisons, alternatives, how-to steps. Answer each one clearly, on the page or on a linked page.
6. Make your brand an entity. Use the same business name, description, address and links on your site, Google Business Profile, LinkedIn and directories. Add Organization or Person structured data with sameAs links.
7. Earn mentions. AI answers often lean on reviews, lists, forums and news. Real reviews and genuine coverage on other sites matter more than anything on your own site.
8. Keep it fresh. Update dates, prices and product details when they change, so AI answers do not repeat old information about you.

For a deeper look at the brand side, read how to get your business recommended by ChatGPT and AI search.

How to measure GEO

Measurement is still young, but it is far better than a year ago.

• Google Search Console: Google’s generative AI performance reports show impressions from AI Overviews, AI Mode and AI features in Discover, by page, country and date. According to Search Engine Journal, they rolled out worldwide on August 31, 2026, though without click data at launch, and sites with few AI impressions may not see a report.
• Bing Webmaster Tools: the AI Performance report, in public preview since February 2026, shows how often your pages are cited in Microsoft Copilot and Bing AI summaries, and the queries behind those citations.
• GA4 referrals: create a channel group or exploration for traffic from chatgpt.com, perplexity.ai, copilot.microsoft.com and gemini.google.com. My GA4 and GTM service can set this up.
• Manual prompt checks: keep a list of 20 to 30 questions your buyers ask. Run them monthly in ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Mode, and record whether you are named, cited and described correctly.
• Branded search and leads: rising branded searches and “found you on ChatGPT” on lead forms are simple signals that AI visibility is turning into business.

What I recommend

Do not treat GEO as a separate project that replaces SEO. Google itself says normal SEO best practices apply to its AI features. Fix crawling and indexing first, then rewrite your most important pages to answer questions directly with evidence, then work on reviews and third-party mentions. Measure monthly and be patient: AI answers change often, and one prompt check proves very little.

Be sceptical of anyone selling guaranteed ChatGPT rankings. No platform offers a paid way to be cited in organic AI answers, and none publishes a ranking formula.

Frequently asked questions

Need help getting cited by AI search?

I’m Saifur Saif, a Google Ads & Meta Ads specialist who also works on SEO, GEO and AEO. I check whether AI crawlers can reach your site, how AI tools currently describe your business, and which pages to rewrite first. If you also run ads, get a free ads audit and I will look at both together.

Sources

• arXiv: GEO: Generative Engine Optimization (Aggarwal et al.)
• Google Search Central: AI features and your website
• OpenAI: Overview of OpenAI crawlers
• Perplexity: Perplexity crawlers
• Search Engine Journal: Google Search Console AI reports rolled out worldwide
• Bing Webmaster Blog: Introducing AI Performance in Bing Webmaster Tools