Ask ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini or Google for a recommendation and you often get a written answer instead of a list of links. The answer names a few brands, explains why, and links to some of the pages it drew on. If your brand is in that answer, you are in the running. If it isn't, the customer may never see you.
Generative engine optimization (GEO) is the work of changing that. This guide explains what GEO is, how it differs from classic SEO, what you can measure, and how to spend your first month.
What generative engine optimization means
Generative engine optimization is the practice of improving how often AI assistants name your brand, how they describe it, and how often they cite your website when they answer the questions your customers ask.
A generative engine is any tool that writes an answer instead of ranking pages: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude and Microsoft Copilot, plus Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode. Some answers come from what the model learned in training. Many assistants also search the web first, and most of them link to their sources.
You will see the same work under other names:
- AEO, answer engine optimization
- AI search optimization, sometimes called AI SEO
- LLM optimization, after the large language models behind the assistants
The labels differ, but the goal is the same. When a customer asks an AI assistant about your category, it should know your brand, describe it correctly, and point to pages that support what it says.
How GEO differs from classic SEO
GEO and SEO share a lot of groundwork. The result you are aiming for is different.
| Classic search | AI search | |
|---|---|---|
| What the searcher gets | A ranked list of links | A written answer that names a few brands and links some sources |
| Who compares the options | The searcher, by opening pages | The assistant, before the searcher sees anything |
| What you aim for | A high position | Being named, early and accurately, and being cited |
| What you measure | Rankings and clicks | The share of answers that mention or cite you |
Answers instead of ten blue links
On a results page, the searcher scans the links and decides what to open. In an AI answer, the assistant has already done the reading. It summarizes, picks a handful of options and explains its choice. If the answer is good enough, the searcher may never open a page.
That changes what counts as success. A page that ranks fifth on Google can be left out of the answer. A brand with a modest website can be named because the review sites the assistant read recommend it.
Being named versus being ranked
In classic search, every result has a rank. In an answer, a brand is either named or not. When it is named, the order and the tone matter. Being the first brand mentioned, with a clear reason, is worth more than a passing mention at the end of a list.
So GEO looks at mentions, at position within the answer and at sentiment, not only at whether one of your pages appears.
Citations are a second way in
Most assistants that search the web link to the pages they used. That gives you two separate goals:
- Owned: your own pages are cited as sources.
- Earned: the other sites assistants cite, such as editorial reviews, community threads and reference pages, mention your brand.
Both matter, and they don't always go together. Your guide might be cited while the answer recommends a competitor. Your brand might be recommended because of a review you didn't write. The pages assistants cite for your questions show you where to put your effort.
Answers vary by market, language and day
Ask the same question in Dutch from the Netherlands and in English from the United States, and you get different answers, different brands and different sources. Ask it again tomorrow and the answer may change again. Engines update their models, the search results they read change, and the writing itself varies from one request to the next.
This is the biggest practical difference from SEO. One screenshot proves very little. To know where you stand, you ask the same questions repeatedly, in every market you sell in, and count.
Is SEO still needed?
Yes. Many assistants search the web before they answer, and what they find depends on ordinary search: whether your pages can be crawled, whether they are indexed and how well they rank. Google says that to be eligible as a supporting link in AI Overviews or AI Mode, a page must be indexed and eligible to show in Search with a snippet, and that its usual SEO advice applies. Other engines run their own crawlers. ChatGPT, for example, relies on OpenAI's OAI-SearchBot to surface sites in its search answers.
GEO builds on that foundation. It adds a different way of measuring, more attention to the sites assistants already trust, and pages written so that a direct answer is easy to find and quote. For the details, see how AI assistants choose sources.
What a brand can measure
You can't look up your rank in an AI answer. You can measure it, though, by asking a fixed set of questions, called prompts, on a schedule and counting what comes back. The core numbers:
- Visibility: the share of answers that mention your brand.
- Share of voice: your mentions as a share of the mentions of all the brands you track.
- Position: where you appear among those brands, by order of first mention.
- Sentiment: the tone of each mention, from negative to positive.
- Citations: which domains and pages the answers cite, and how often your own site is one of them.
- Gap: answers where a competitor is named or cited and you aren't.
- AI traffic: visits from AI crawlers, and from people who click through from an assistant.
Each of these is a count over many answers, so the number of prompts, markets and days behind it matters. AI visibility metrics explained covers each definition and how to read them together.
A sensible first month
GEO rewards steady work more than one big push. Here is a realistic first month for one brand.
Week 1: choose what to track
Collect the questions customers ask before they buy. Look at sales calls, support tickets, Search Console queries and the People Also Ask boxes on Google. Turn them into natural prompts, group them into a few topics, and pick the markets and languages you sell in. Add the competitors you meet most often.
Week 2: read the answers
Before you change anything, read what the assistants actually say. For each topic, note:
- which brands are named, and in what order
- what the answers say about you, and whether it is accurate
- which sites are cited, and what kind they are: reviews, forums, reference pages, competitors' own sites
Patterns appear quickly. Often the same few sources come up again and again.
Week 3: fix your own pages
Start with the basics. Check that robots.txt and your firewall don't block the search crawlers of the engines you care about. Then pick the pages that should answer your most important prompts and make them easy to cite. Answer the question in the first lines, add the specific facts people ask about, compare options honestly, and update anything out of date.
Week 4: work on the sources that matter
Take the third-party pages that are cited often and name competitors but not you. Some are review articles, where you can offer facts or an update. Some are community threads, where a useful reply from someone who says who they are can help. Then compare your numbers with your first week, over periods of equal length, and plan the next month.
Don't expect the numbers to move within days. Pages need to be recrawled, and answers vary from day to day, so judge changes over two to four weeks.
How GoGetCited helps
GoGetCited tracks the prompts your customers ask: it puts them to the AI engines every day, in each market you choose, and records the full answers and the sources they cite. It shows your visibility, share of voice, position and sentiment against your competitors, which sites the answers rely on, and a prioritized list of actions. You can start with your own website and read the first answers within minutes.