What is GEO (and AEO), and how is it different from SEO?

Quick summary

• GEO (generative engine optimization) and AEO (answer engine optimization) are two names for the same job: getting AI assistants and AI search engines to mention your brand and cite your site when they answer.
• "GEO" comes from a 2023 research paper by Aggarwal et al., later presented at KDD 2024. "AEO" is an older, more commercial label.
• Google's own guide to optimizing for generative AI search says that, from Google Search's point of view, this is "still SEO". For Google, that's true. ChatGPT, Perplexity and Claude run their own crawlers and indexes, so there are a few extra things to get right.
• What genuinely changes is measurement: there are no rankings, only answers that vary. You measure the share of answers that mention or cite you, asking each question several times.

Where the acronyms come from

In November 2023, Pranjal Aggarwal and five co-authors published "GEO: Generative Engine Optimization", later accepted at KDD 2024. The paper defines "generative engines" as systems that pull information from several sources and summarize it with a language model, and it proposes a framework for measuring and improving a page's visibility inside those answers. On the authors' own benchmark, some content changes increased visibility by up to 40%, and they stress that what works varies by domain.

That caveat matters more than the headline number. It's a result on a research benchmark, not a promise you can transfer to your site.

AEO predates it and is fuzzier. It was used for featured snippets and voice assistants and is now applied to the same thing as GEO. You'll also see "LLMO" and "AI SEO". There's no substantive difference between them: anyone selling any of these is talking about showing up in AI-generated answers.

How it's the same as SEO

More than the people selling GEO as something brand new tend to admit.

Google's documentation on AI features and your website is explicit: to be eligible as a supporting link in AI Overviews or AI Mode, a page has to be indexed and eligible to appear in Search with a snippet. There are no additional technical requirements. Its generative AI guide explains why: those features sit on top of Google's core ranking systems and retrieve pages from the same index (retrieval-augmented generation, or "grounding"), often by firing several related searches at once ("query fan-out").

Outside Google, the picture is similar. ChatGPT, Perplexity and Claude search the web when they need current information and cite the pages they use. To do that, they need to be able to crawl them:

• OpenAI recommends allowing OAI-SearchBot to appear in ChatGPT's search results.
• Perplexity recommends allowing PerplexityBot for its search engine.
• Anthropic says that blocking Claude-SearchBot or Claude-User may reduce your visibility in Claude's answers.

So the foundation is the SEO foundation: be crawlable, have your content in readable HTML, and answer what people actually ask.

How it's different

There are no ten blue links

In classic search you're in position 4 or position 14. In a generated answer, your brand is either in the paragraph or it isn't, and it may or may not come with a link. That's why it pays to separate two things:

• Mention: the answer text names your brand.
• Citation: your site appears as a linked source.

You can be recommended without being linked (the model knows you but cites a third-party roundup) and linked without being named (your page is the source for a general fact).

Answers aren't stable

Ask the same question twice and the list of brands will probably change. A single query is an anecdote. The sensible metric is a share ("mentioned in 7 of 12 answers") with a range that tells you how much noise there is. We walk through it in how to measure your brand's visibility in ChatGPT.

Questions are longer

Google notes on its Search Central blog that people in its AI experiences ask longer, more specific questions and follow-ups. That favours content that answers a concrete situation ("best CRM for a ten-person agency selling in the UK") over content that repeats generalities.

What others say about you carries a lot of weight

A classic search engine shows your page. A generative engine summarizes what it finds across many sources, and a lot of them aren't yours: comparisons, roundups, forums, reviews. If the engines cite a third-party comparison that includes your competitors and not you, your own site can be perfect and you still won't show up. A real part of GEO happens off your site.

What Google says you can skip

Google's guide, last updated in July 2026, has a mythbusting section. For Google Search, it says you can ignore:

• llms.txt and other "special" files: Google Search doesn't use them. They neither help nor hurt. Keep one for other services if you like (more in llms.txt explained).
• "Chunking" content into tiny pieces so AI can "understand" it.
• Rewriting for AI: its systems understand synonyms; you don't need every long-tail variant.
• Seeking inauthentic mentions across the web.
• Overfocusing on structured data: it isn't required for generative AI features and there's no special schema.org markup to add.

And a warning worth reading twice: creating pages for every variation of a query mainly to manipulate AI answers violates Google's scaled content abuse policy. "Publish 300 pages for 300 prompts" is exactly the thing not to do.

So is GEO just hype?

Not entirely. The foundation being SEO doesn't mean nothing is new. Three things are usually not covered by a classic SEO setup:

1. Measurement. Search Console now has a generative AI performance report with impressions in AI Overviews and AI Mode, available to all sites since 31 August 2026. It tells you nothing about ChatGPT, Perplexity, the Gemini app or Claude, nor which competitors show up instead of you.
2. Different crawlers. Every AI company runs separate bots for search, training and user-initiated fetches. Block the wrong one and you can drop out of answers without noticing. See robots.txt and AI crawlers.
3. Third-party sources. Knowing which pages the engines cite for your buyer questions, and deciding whether you belong on them.

How to start without spending anything

1. Write 10–15 buyer questions a customer would ask an assistant before choosing you, without your brand in them.
2. Ask them in ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google, in fresh sessions, several times each, and note whether you're mentioned, whether you're cited and who is.
3. Check your robots.txt with the AI crawler checker: in a minute you'll know whether you're blocking a search crawler.
4. Look at the sources cited where you're missing. That's your to-do list: pages you don't have yet, or third-party pages you should be on.
5. Repeat weekly and watch trends, not single answers.

If you'd rather not do it by hand, the free AI visibility report measures up to five buyer questions in ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Overviews, no card needed. Our methodology explains how we calculate it.

What Citable does here, and what it doesn't

Every week, Citable asks each site's buyer questions in the AI engines on its plan (three times per engine; Claude once), separates mentions from citations, reports shares with 90% Wilson confidence intervals and records which competitors and which third-party pages are cited instead. From those gaps it proposes sourced articles and improvements to existing pages, then re-measures to see whether the published URL starts being cited.

What it doesn't do: promise rankings or citations, or buy mentions or links. Plans and what each includes are on the pricing page.

FAQ

Are GEO and AEO the same thing?

In practice, yes. GEO (generative engine optimization) comes from a 2023 research paper and AEO (answer engine optimization) is an older, more commercial term. Both are used today for the work of being mentioned or cited in AI-generated answers.

Does GEO replace SEO?

No. Google says its AI features rely on its core Search ranking systems and have no additional technical requirements. Outside Google, ChatGPT, Perplexity and Claude also search the web and need to crawl your pages. SEO is the foundation; GEO adds per-engine measurement, AI crawler hygiene and work on third-party sources.

How long does it take to see results?

There's no reliable timeline. It depends on when pages get crawled and indexed, how competitive each question is and how much answers vary. The honest approach is to measure before and after with repeated samples and watch whether your published URL starts appearing as a cited source.

Do I need a paid tool to do GEO?

Not to start. You can measure by hand in a spreadsheet, check your robots.txt and look at which sources get cited. A tool saves time once you want to repeat many questions every week across several engines and compare against competitors.

Conclusion

GEO is mostly good SEO plus three things classic SEO didn't cover: measuring each AI engine with repeated samples, not blocking the crawlers that feed the answers by mistake, and working on the third-party sources the engines cite. Be wary of anyone selling shortcuts that Google itself says don't work, and start by measuring where you stand.