What Is GEO vs SEO? Generative Engine Optimisation Explained

GEO (generative engine optimisation) is the practice of making your content more likely to be quoted, cited or recommended in AI-generated answers from tools such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google’s AI Overviews. SEO aims to rank pages in search results. AEO aims to be the direct answer. GEO aims to be a source the AI uses.

The three overlap heavily. The same strong pages tend to do well across all of them, but each puts weight on different outcomes and measures success differently. This article explains each term, where the idea of GEO came from, and practical steps you can take now.

What is SEO?

Search engine optimisation (SEO) is the work of helping web pages rank in traditional search results such as Google’s and Bing’s lists of links. It covers technical health (crawling, indexing, speed), on-page content (titles, headings, useful answers) and off-page signals (links and mentions from other sites).

Success is measured in rankings, impressions, clicks and conversions. The goal is to get a person to click through to your site.

What is AEO?

Answer engine optimisation (AEO) is an industry term for structuring content so that search engines and voice assistants can lift a direct answer from it. Typical targets are featured snippets, “People also ask” boxes and spoken answers from voice assistants.

AEO work usually means short, direct answers near the top of a page, question-style headings, lists, tables and FAQ sections. Success often means being shown as the answer, sometimes without a click.

What is GEO?

Generative engine optimisation (GEO) focuses on large language model (LLM) tools that write a fresh answer by reading and combining several sources. Examples include ChatGPT search, Perplexity, Microsoft Copilot, Gemini, and Google’s AI Overviews and AI Mode.

Here, there is no single list of ten blue links to rank in. The AI picks a handful of sources, summarises them and may cite some of them. GEO is about being one of those sources, being described accurately, and having your brand named in the answer.

Where the term GEO came from: the 2023 research paper

The term was popularised by a research paper titled “GEO: Generative Engine Optimization”, first posted on arXiv on 16 November 2023. The authors are Pranjal Aggarwal (IIT Delhi), Vishvak Murahari, Karthik Narasimhan and Ameet Deshpande (Princeton University), and Tanmay Rajpurohit and Ashwin Kalyan. It was later published at KDD 2024, a major data science conference held in Barcelona in August 2024.

The researchers built GEO-bench, a set of 10,000 queries across many subject areas, and tested nine ways of rewriting source content. Their main findings:

• Visibility can rise by up to 40%. The best methods improved how prominently a source appeared in AI answers by up to about 40% on the paper’s main measure.
• Adding statistics, quotations and source citations worked best. These three methods gave the strongest gains across the paper’s metrics.
• Keyword stuffing did not help. This old SEO tactic performed slightly worse than leaving content unchanged.
• Results vary by subject. The authors note that what works differs between domains, so there is no single formula.
• Real-world test. On Perplexity, a live AI search engine, visibility improved by up to 37%.

The study used a model-based test set-up with GPT-3.5 and Google’s top five results per query. It is a useful signal of what AI systems reward, but it does not guarantee the same results on every platform today.

GEO vs SEO vs AEO: comparison table

	SEO	AEO	GEO
Main goal	Rank pages in search results	Be shown as the direct answer	Be cited or named in AI-written answers
Where it shows	Google and Bing result lists	Featured snippets, “People also ask”, voice assistants	ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot, AI Overviews
Typical content focus	Keyword-relevant, thorough pages	Short, clear answers to questions	Factual, well-sourced content with statistics and clear claims
Main signals	Relevance, links, page experience	Answer clarity, structure	Clarity, credibility, mentions across the web
How success is measured	Rankings, clicks, conversions	Snippet ownership, answer visibility	Citations, brand mentions, referral traffic from AI tools
Click to your site	Usually needed	Often not needed	Sometimes, via a cited link

Is GEO replacing SEO?

No. GEO depends on SEO. Most AI search tools retrieve live web pages before writing an answer, and pages that cannot be crawled or are hard to understand are less likely to be used.

Google is direct on this point. Its guidance on AI features and your website says there are no extra requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode. A page needs to be indexed and eligible to show a snippet. Google also says you do not need special AI text files or special schema markup. Traffic from these features is counted in the normal Performance report in Search Console, under the “Web” search type.

So a sound SEO foundation comes first. GEO adds attention to how your content reads when an AI summarises it, and how your brand is described across the web.

How to optimise for GEO: practical steps

1. Allow AI search crawlers. Check your robots.txt and CDN settings. OpenAI’s crawler documentation says sites that block OAI-SearchBot will not appear in ChatGPT search answers. Blocking GPTBot, which collects training data, is a separate choice and does not affect search.
2. Answer the question in the first paragraph. Put a clear, 40 to 60 word answer at the top, then expand. AI tools and snippets both lift clean, self-contained statements.
3. Add verified statistics and cite sources. The GEO paper found these among the most effective changes. Link to the original source, such as a government site, a study or an official document.
4. Include short expert quotes. Quotations from named, credible people were another top performer in the research. Use real quotes with attribution.
5. Use clear structure. Question-style headings, numbered steps, comparison tables and FAQ sections make content easy to extract.
6. Show who is behind the content. Google’s guidance on helpful content asks “Who, How and Why” a page was made. Add author names, credentials and dates, and keep facts current.
7. Build mentions beyond your own site. AI tools draw on many sources. Coverage in trade publications, reviews, directories and community discussions helps define how your brand is described. This overlaps with brand building and PR.
8. Keep key facts consistent. Your business name, location, services and prices should match across your website, Google Business Profile and social profiles, so AI tools do not repeat outdated details.
9. Avoid keyword stuffing. It did not help in the research and makes content harder to read.

How to measure GEO results

GEO measurement is less mature than SEO reporting, but there are practical methods:

• Referral traffic: In your analytics tool, look for visits from domains such as chatgpt.com and perplexity.ai.
• Manual prompt checks: Each month, ask the main AI tools 10 to 20 questions your customers would ask. Record whether your brand is mentioned or cited, and whether the details are correct.
• Search Console: Watch impressions and clicks for informational pages, since AI Overview appearances are included in the standard report.
• Brand searches and enquiries: Ask new leads where they heard of you. Add AI assistants as an option on enquiry forms.

AI answers change often, even for the same prompt, so track trends over several months rather than single checks.

Frequently asked questions