GEO vs SEO: what's different and what isn't

SEO (search engine optimisation) is the work of getting your pages found and clicked in a list of search results. GEO (generative engine optimisation) is the work of getting your pages read, quoted and linked inside an answer that an AI writes, in Google's AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Copilot or Perplexity. Most of the work is the same: a page that search engines can crawl, index and trust is the raw material AI answers are built from. What changes is how your page is used once it's found, and how you measure it.

Where the term GEO comes from

"Generative Engine Optimization" is the title of a 2023 research paper by Pranjal Aggarwal and five co-authors, accepted at KDD 2024 (arXiv 2311.09735). The authors describe AI search engines that answer a query by summarising several sources at once, and they define GEO as ways for a content creator to make their page more visible in those answers. They report that some changes to a page can raise its visibility in AI answers "by up to 40%".

The details matter more than the headline. In their experiments, the changes that helped most were adding quotations from relevant sources, adding statistics, and citing sources. Keyword stuffing, the oldest SEO trick, made pages slightly less visible. And pages that ranked lower in the search results gained the most, while the top-ranked page sometimes lost ground. One caution: most of those tests ran on a simulated engine the authors built (the top five Google results fed to a 2023 OpenAI model), with a smaller check on Perplexity. It is evidence about how answer-writing models use text, not a ranking manual for any live product.

Since then "GEO" has become the common name for the whole practice, alongside AEO (answer engine optimisation), "AI SEO" and LLM SEO. They all mean roughly the same thing.

How the two differ

	SEO	GEO
Where you appear	A ranked list of links (the "ten blue links"), plus snippets and maps	Inside a written answer, as a quoted source or a linked citation
What the engine picks	Whole pages, ranked for one query	Passages from several pages, gathered from several related searches
What the reader sees of you	Your title, description and URL	A sentence or a fact from your page, sometimes with your name and a link
What success looks like	Rankings, clicks, visits	Being cited, being named, the visits that follow
How you measure it	Google Search Console, Bing Webmaster Tools, analytics	Partly the same tools; partly checking answers by hand
Who decides	Google and Bing ranking systems	The same indexes, then a language model choosing what to quote

The biggest practical difference is in that second row. Google says its AI Overviews and AI Mode may use "query fan-out": the system runs several related searches across subtopics and then writes one answer from what it finds (Google Search Central). Bing describes the next step: AI assistants "don't read a page top to bottom like a person would"; they break pages into smaller pieces and rank the pieces (Microsoft, October 2025). So a page can be cited for one good paragraph even if it isn't the top result for the question the person typed.

That shows in the data. Ahrefs checked 15,000 prompts and found that on average only about 12% of the links cited by ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot and Perplexity were in Google's top 10 for the same prompt; for ChatGPT it was about 8% (Ahrefs, August 2025). Google's own AI Overviews track the normal results much more closely: the same article cites separate Ahrefs research in which 76% of AI Overview citations came from top-10 pages.

Where they overlap

Most of GEO is SEO done properly. Google is direct about this for its own AI features: "There are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, nor other special optimizations necessary." A page has to be indexed and eligible to show with a snippet, and the usual advice applies: let crawlers in, link your pages to each other, keep important content in text, and make structured data match what's visible on the page (Google Search Central).

The other AI assistants also start from search indexes. ChatGPT search uses its own crawler plus outside search services; an OpenAI engineering lead has said "Bing is an important one" (Search Engine Roundtable). Copilot is built on Bing. So the shared foundation is:

Crawlable and indexed. If Googlebot, Bingbot or the AI search crawlers can't fetch the page, nothing else matters.
Fast, plain HTML. Text that's in the page, not behind a script, a tab or a click.
Clear structure. One topic per page, descriptive headings, short answer-first paragraphs.
Structured data. Facts about your business, services, people and FAQs in a format machines read.
Trust. Real facts, sources for claims, a named business behind the page, other sites mentioning you.

Where GEO asks for something extra

A few things matter more when the reader is a language model than when it's a ranking algorithm:

Self-contained passages. Because pages are read in pieces, each section should make sense on its own: say the subject by name ("Our Richmond campus is open Saturdays") instead of "It's open Saturdays".
Specifics that are worth quoting. Prices, hours, numbers, named steps, a clear definition. The GEO paper's best results came from adding statistics, quotations and sources.
Nothing important hidden. Bing warns that AI systems "may not render hidden content", so answers in accordions or tabs can be skipped (Microsoft).
Coverage of the follow-up questions. Fan-out means the engine looks for the questions behind the question. A service page that answers price, duration, who it's for and how to book has more chances to be picked than one that only names the service.
Your name across the web. AI answers often name businesses as well as linking them. Being listed and described consistently on other sites (directories, reviews, local press, Bing Places, Google Business Profile) helps the model connect your name to the topic.
Separate crawler controls. AI companies run different crawlers for search and for model training. You can allow one and block the other. See the ChatGPT SEO guide for OpenAI's three crawlers.

What to do about both

For a clinic, school, studio or firm, the order of work is the same for GEO and SEO:

Fix the basics. Make sure the site is indexed in Google and Bing, has a sitemap, loads quickly on a phone, and doesn't block search or AI search crawlers in robots.txt or at the firewall.
One page per thing people ask about. A page for each service and each location, with the price range, who it's for, what happens and how to book.
Write answer-first. Open each page and each section with the direct answer, then the detail.
Add structured data. Business, locations with addresses and opening hours, services, people, FAQs.
Give the facts sources. Link to the pages your claims come from. Give real numbers.
Keep it current. Out-of-date prices and hours get quoted too. Bing recommends IndexNow so engines learn about changes when you make them (Bing Webmaster Blog).
Measure both. Google counts AI Overview and AI Mode visits in Search Console's normal Performance report under "Web"; it doesn't split them out. Bing Webmaster Tools has an AI Performance report showing how often your pages are cited in Copilot and Bing's AI answers. For ChatGPT, ask it your customers' questions and look for referral visits from chatgpt.com in your analytics.

Things you can skip: rewriting pages for "AI keywords", stuffing pages with phrases, and buying a GEO tool before the basics are in place. Google says no AI-specific files or markup are needed for its AI features. The llms.txt file is a proposal that some sites publish; the LLM SEO guide covers what is and isn't known about it.

How Firetend handles this

Every Firetend site does the shared foundation by default: static pages that load fast, structured data generated from the content (business, locations, services, team, articles, FAQs, breadcrumbs), a sitemap, a robots.txt that allows search engines and AI answers but not AI training unless you turn it on, an /llms.txt file and a plain Markdown copy of each page for AI tools, and IndexNow on every publish. The content agent checks each page it writes for search and AI-readiness. The details are in How your site shows up in search and AI answers.

The writing is still yours to direct: which questions your pages answer, which facts and prices you're willing to publish. If your current site is slow or hides its content in scripts, an AI website redesign rebuilds it on that foundation. For how other builders compare on the basics, see the best website builders for SEO.

FAQ

Is GEO replacing SEO?

No. AI answers are built from pages the engines have already crawled and indexed, so SEO is the entry ticket. Google says there are no extra requirements to appear in its AI features beyond being indexed and eligible for a snippet. GEO adds attention to how your text reads when it's lifted out of the page.

What's the difference between GEO, AEO and LLM SEO?

Mostly the name. GEO comes from the 2023 research paper; AEO (answer engine optimisation) came earlier, from featured snippets and voice answers; LLM SEO and AI SEO are the plain-English versions. All describe being used as a source in AI-written answers.

Do I need a separate GEO strategy for a small business site?

Usually not. A small business site needs the same things for both: indexed pages, one page per service and location, direct answers, structured data, current facts and a consistent name and address across the web. The extra GEO step is checking what AI assistants say about you and fixing the pages they get wrong.

Can I track traffic from AI answers?

Partly. Google includes AI Overview and AI Mode visits in Search Console's Web search totals without separating them. Bing Webmaster Tools reports citations in Copilot and Bing's AI answers. Visits from ChatGPT, Perplexity and others show up as referrals in your analytics.

Does blocking AI crawlers hurt my SEO?

Blocking training crawlers such as GPTBot or the Google-Extended token doesn't affect Google Search; Google says Google-Extended is not a ranking signal (Google). Blocking AI search crawlers, such as OpenAI's OAI-SearchBot, keeps you out of those assistants' answers.