What is GEO? Generative Engine Optimization explained
Generative engine optimization (GEO) is the practice of making your brand visible, and accurately described, in answers written by AI assistants such as ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity and Grok. It is sometimes called answer engine optimization (AEO) or LLM optimization.
Why GEO matters
Buyers increasingly ask an AI assistant instead of typing a query into a search engine. They ask for the best tool for a job, for alternatives to a product, or for a comparison, and they get a written answer with a shortlist. If your brand is not in that answer, you are not on the shortlist, and you may never know the question was asked.
How GEO differs from SEO
Search engine optimization aims for a high position in a list of links. GEO aims to be named and recommended inside a generated answer. The two overlap: AI engines often retrieve pages through search, so good SEO helps. But GEO adds questions SEO doesn't answer:
- Is your brand mentioned at all, and how often?
- Is it the top pick, one of several recommendations, or a passing mention, or does the answer warn against it?
- Which competitors are recommended instead?
- Which sources does the engine cite when it talks about your category?
What influences AI answers
- Crawler access: AI crawlers such as GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot and Google-Extended must be allowed by your robots.txt.
- Readable content: key information should be in the page HTML, clearly structured, with structured data where it helps.
- Third-party sources: review sites, publications and communities are frequently cited for buyer questions.
- Accuracy and freshness: current, specific information is more useful to an answer than vague claims.
How to measure GEO
You can't optimise what you can't see. Measuring GEO means asking the engines the questions your buyers ask, on a schedule, and recording the answers: whether you appear, your position, how you're described, which competitors appear, and what sources are cited. Read more in how AI search engines pick sources.
Getting started
- List 10 to 25 questions a buyer in your category would ask an AI assistant.
- Check how ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity and Grok answer them today.
- Check your site with our free AI crawler checker.
- Track the answers over time as you improve your pages and earn citations.
GeoAppear automates the measuring: it suggests the questions, asks every engine, analyses every answer and keeps the history.