What is GEO (generative engine optimisation)?

GEO, generative engine optimisation, is the work on a website and its content that makes it more likely that ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google's AI Overviews will cite you when they answer a question in your field. The term is new and is used alongside neighbouring names such as AEO, but research already shows what actually helps.

Published 24.09.2026. Checked 24.09.2026.

Where does the term GEO come from?

The name Generative Engine Optimization comes from an academic paper by a team led by Pranjal Aggarwal, published as a preprint in November 2023 and updated in 2024. The paper introduces a benchmark called GEO-bench and shows that applying individual techniques, such as direct quotations, statistics and citing sources, can raise a page's visibility in generative answers by up to 40 percent. That figure comes from a controlled research setting, not from measuring a real website, so read it as a ceiling on what is possible, not a guaranteed result.

Google notes that AEO (answer engine optimisation) and GEO are both terms you may see used for work on visibility in AI search; AIO (artificial intelligence optimisation) and LLMO (large language model optimisation) are also in use in the trade. Forrester analyst Nikhil Lai wrote in November 2025 that AEO, the neighbouring term for the same work, is "significantly, but not fundamentally, different from SEO."

In 2026 Google published its own documentation on the topic. It states plainly that optimizing for generative AI search is optimizing for the search experience, and is therefore still SEO. That is the official position of the company behind AI Overviews.

How does GEO differ from classic SEO?

In three ways: models search all content for the answer instead of ranking pages; they read and judge passage by passage; and they choose sources by trust rather than position.

iPullRank, an agency that specializes in this work, describes three concrete differences from classic SEO, each pointing to a different kind of work on a website.

The first is how models search. They search across a huge volume of content to find passages that answer the question, instead of ranking pages into a list. The practical consequence: the answer can come from a passage in someone else's content, not only from your own website.

The second is how content is read. Content is judged passage by passage, not page by page. The unit of optimisation stops being the page and becomes the paragraph that fully answers one question. A page that ranks well but is cut poorly into meaningful passages loses here.

The third is how sources are chosen. Models choose which sources to cite based on trust signals, clarity and depth, not on ranking position. There is no first place to fight over, only a probabilistic choice you can raise but never guarantee.

What actually moves visibility in AI answers?

Fresh content, statistics, direct quotations and clearly named sources show up as factors in the studies.

Seer Interactive analyzed hundreds of thousands of data points from its own client accounts in February 2025 and found that more than 80 percent of the traffic coming from AI platforms went to pages updated within the past two years, while only 3.6 percent went to pages older than four years. Content freshness is one of the few factors with a concrete, measured number behind it, not just a claim.

Statistical facts, direct quotations and verifiable numbers are exactly what the Aggarwal team's paper calls out as techniques, quotations and statistics, that raise visibility. Current dates, clear sources and specific numbers each show up as factors in different studies: dates at Seer, sources and statistics in the Aggarwal paper.

Questions

Does GEO replace SEO?

No. Google says that optimizing for generative AI search is "still SEO": a fast, readable website with clear pages remains the foundation for both.

Do we need a GEO specialist?

Whether you need outside help depends on scope. A small page with two or three clear answers can be reworked by the business owner. A larger website with many services benefits from systematically measuring which passage already gets cited and which does not.

How soon do you see results from GEO work?

Per the agency WebFX's experience with its clients, first signals usually come within four to eight weeks, and steadier citations and mentions within three to six months. A durable result still takes months, not weeks.

Sources

We measure whether AI platforms already cite you.

Before you rewrite content on a hunch, see with real questions which passage on your website already appears in AI answers, and which does not appear at all.

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