What is GEO, and is it just SEO?

Somebody has probably offered you "GEO" in the last few months. It tends to arrive as a new line on an agency proposal, or in a LinkedIn post announcing that SEO is finished. The word sounds technical, the fee often sits above the SEO line it replaces, and nobody explains what will change on your website on Monday morning.

GEO stands for generative engine optimisation: work aimed at getting your firm named, quoted and linked inside the answers that AI assistants write, such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, Claude, Perplexity and Google's AI Overviews. AEO, answer engine optimisation, is a close cousin that puts the stress on being the single direct answer a system gives. Most UK searchers use neither label. Over the 12 months to 24 September 2026, "AI SEO" drew about nine times the UK search interest of "generative engine optimization" on Google Trends, and GEO drew more interest than AEO.

Google has now given its view. Its 2026 guide to generative AI search names both terms and says that, from Google Search's perspective, optimising for AI answers is still SEO (Google Search Central, updated July 2026). That holds for Google and only partly for everyone else. This guide explains where the term came from, what Google says, what does change when the goal is being named rather than ranked, and how to judge an agency that sells GEO.

#What does GEO actually mean?

GEO is the practice of shaping your website and your wider reputation so that AI assistants mention your firm when a buyer asks a question you can answer. The target is a sentence in an answer, such as "firms worth speaking to include...", rather than a position in a list of links.

The phrase comes from a paper called GEO: Generative Engine Optimization by Pranjal Aggarwal and colleagues at Princeton and IIT Delhi, first posted in November 2023 and accepted at KDD 2024, a major data science conference. The authors described generative engines as systems that search the web and then summarise several sources with a large language model. They tested simple changes to web pages and measured how visible each page became in the generated answer.

Three changes helped most. Adding quotations from relevant people raised visibility by about 41%, adding statistics by about 34% and citing credible sources by about 30%. Keyword stuffing lowered visibility by about 8% on the main measure. Pages that ranked lower in the underlying search results gained the most, which is encouraging for smaller firms up against large sites.

Two cautions. The tests ran on a research engine and a benchmark built in 2023, so the figures are directional and say nothing specific about ChatGPT or Google in 2026. And the changes that worked are the ones a good editor would make anyway: evidence, named sources and clear writing.

#What is AEO, and is it different from GEO?

AEO, answer engine optimisation, means making your content the answer a system gives, rather than one link among several. The analyst firm Forrester uses the term in its January 2026 buyer research, telling vendors they will need to move from "driving traffic through search engine optimization to driving visibility through answer engine optimization" (Forrester, January 2026).

In practice agencies use the two labels for the same work. Here is how the main terms compare.

Google Trends shows relative interest, not search volumes, so read the table as a ranking. The practical point: if you write about this subject for UK buyers, use the words they type and explain the acronyms once.

#Is GEO just SEO? What does Google say?

For Google, yes. Google's guide, "Optimizing your website for generative AI features on Google Search", published in May 2026 and last updated on 10 July 2026, names AEO and GEO and says: "From Google Search's perspective, optimizing for generative AI search is optimizing for the search experience, and thus still SEO" (Google Search Central).

The same guide lists things you do not need to do for Google's AI features:

• You do not need new machine-readable files, AI text files, llms.txt, special markup or Markdown copies of your pages.
• You do not need to break content into tiny chunks for AI to understand it.
• You do not need to write in a special way just for AI search.
• Chasing inauthentic mentions across the web is not as helpful as it may seem.
• Structured data is not required, and there is no special schema markup for AI.

It also warns that creating separate content for every possible variation of how people might search breaks Google's scaled content abuse spam policy. And it says the content that counts most is "non-commodity": first-hand expert experience rather than the common-knowledge lists anyone could write.

Google speaks only for Google. ChatGPT search, Copilot, Claude and Perplexity run their own systems. ChatGPT search, for example, can only include your site if you allow OpenAI's search crawler, OAI-SearchBot (OpenAI Help Center). Most of the groundwork is shared, which is why our guide on whether you still need SEO says to keep the technical basics and build on them.

#What actually changes when the goal is being named?

Four things change, and they are the fair case for treating this as more than a new name.

A named answer is not a ranked list. Ten links give ten firms a chance. An assistant's answer usually names a handful, and there is no page two. A firm can rank well and still be left out, which our guide on getting ChatGPT to recommend your firm explains in detail.

One question becomes several searches. Google's AI features use query fan-out: the model runs a set of related searches at the same time to build its answer. That is one reason Ahrefs found in March 2026 that only 38% of AI Overview citations came from pages ranking in the top ten, down from 76% in July 2025 (Ahrefs, March 2026). Ranking still helps. Covering the follow-up questions a buyer would ask matters as well.

Other people's words count for more. Muck Rack's May 2026 analysis of more than 25 million links cited by ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini found that 84% came from earned media, meaning coverage written by someone else, and 0.3% from paid content (Muck Rack, May 2026). Reviews matter too: in G2's April 2026 survey of 1,076 software buyers, 45% said citations of review sites were the most confidence-inspiring signal in an AI answer.

Measurement works differently. There is no rank to check, and answers vary from run to run. The useful measure is a fixed list of 20 to 50 buyer questions, asked several times a month in a clean session, with a win counted only when it repeats. Our method for ID-Pal reads: "The same buyer questions run every month in ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude, in a fresh chat. A win only counts when it repeats, and losses are reported too." The result so far: "UK buyer questions where AI names ID-Pal: none in May, two in August, four in September 2026" (ID-Pal case study).

Here is the whole picture in one table.

#Why do you keep hearing GEO if Google says it is SEO?

Because a new label helps sell a new line on an invoice. That is not always cynical. In our experience, many SEO programmes left out press coverage, reviews and question-led writing, and a firm that adds those has changed its work, whatever it calls it. The label matters far less than the list of changes behind it.

#How do you judge an agency selling GEO?

Ask for specifics. A credible provider can show you what the assistants say about you today and tell you exactly what it will change. These five steps take about an hour per proposal.

#Step 1: Ask to see today's answers

Ask the agency to run ten of your buyer questions in ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot and Google's AI Mode before you sign, and to show you the answers, including who is named instead of you. If they cannot, they are guessing.

#Step 2: Ask what will change, and where

Every change should sit in one of three places: your website (structure, pages, facts), your content (questions answered, evidence added) or other people's sites (coverage, reviews, directories). A proposal that promises "AI optimisation" without naming a single page is a warning sign.

#Step 3: Check their claims against Google's guide

If the plan leans on llms.txt files, splitting pages into chunks, special AI schema or a new page for every variation of a question, it runs against Google's published guidance. Some of it may help with other assistants, so ask them for the evidence.

#Step 4: Ask how they will measure

Look for a fixed list of buyer questions, repeated runs, losses reported alongside wins, and a monthly report you can read in five minutes. Our guide on tracking whether ChatGPT recommends you sets out the method.

#Step 5: Ask what they will guarantee

Nobody can guarantee what an AI assistant will say. A provider can guarantee effort, reporting and outcomes it controls. Be wary of anyone who guarantees a place in ChatGPT's answers.

Our guide on comparing AI search providers has a longer list of questions, and what AI search optimisation costs in the UK covers budgets.

#What to do this month

1. Write down the 20 buyer questions that lead to your services, in your buyers' own words.
2. Run them in ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot and Google, in a clean session, and note who is named and which sources are cited.
3. Check that your robots.txt and your CDN or firewall let OAI-SearchBot, Bingbot and Googlebot in.
4. Pick the three questions you most want to win and make sure one page on your site answers each directly, with evidence, in its first third.
5. Read any GEO or AI SEO proposal on your desk against the five steps above.

#Frequently asked questions

#Is GEO a real discipline or a rebrand of SEO?

Both, depending on who sells it. The foundations are SEO, and Google says so. What is new is the goal of being named in an answer, the weight of press coverage and reviews, and measuring with repeated questions instead of rankings. Judge the work behind the label.

#What does AEO stand for?

Answer engine optimisation. It means making your content the direct answer an engine gives. Today agencies use it almost interchangeably with GEO, and Google's 2026 guide names both.

#Do we need an llms.txt file for GEO?

Not for Google. Google's guide says its search ignores llms.txt, so the file will neither help nor harm you there. It is cheap and harmless to publish one for other tools, but it is not a ranking factor, and a plan built around it is a weak plan.

#Does GEO replace SEO?

No. Google's AI features, ChatGPT search and Copilot all start from a search index, so pages that search engines cannot find or trust rarely appear in answers. Keep the SEO basics, then add what makes a firm quotable: clear answers, evidence and coverage on other sites.

#How long does GEO take to work?

Assistants that search the web live, such as ChatGPT search, Perplexity, Copilot and Google's AI features, can reflect a new page or article within weeks. Answers drawn from a model's own memory change only when the model is retrained, which takes months. Plan for both.

#Can a GEO agency guarantee we will be recommended by ChatGPT?

No. Nobody controls what an AI assistant says, and answers vary from run to run. A provider can fairly guarantee the work it does, its reporting and outcomes it controls. Treat a guaranteed place in ChatGPT's answers as a reason to ask more questions.

#Is structured data part of GEO?

It helps search engines read your facts correctly, so keep it accurate. Google says its AI features need no special markup, and OpenAI and Anthropic have not said they read it. Treat it as housekeeping.

If you want to know what the assistants say about your firm today and which three changes would matter most, book a free Growth Review. The ongoing work of earning mentions sits within Reputation That Wins.

#Sources