GEO (generative engine optimisation)
GEO is the work of making a site visible and citable inside AI-generated answers.
Also known as: generative engine optimization · AI search optimisation · LLM visibility
Classic SEO is about ranking in a list of links. GEO is about a different surface: when an assistant writes an answer, whose sentence does it use and whom does it name. The unit is not the page, it is the passage.
In practice that means writing definitions that can stand alone, keeping the answer close to the question, publishing structured data, and not blocking AI crawlers in robots.txt. A page written as one long argument is hard to quote; a page with clear claims is easy to quote.
When to use it
When it makes sense
When your audience asks questions rather than types keywords, and when being cited as a source has value for you.
When it is unnecessary
When the content is only useful to someone already on your site. There is nothing there for an engine to quote.
Common questions
Does GEO replace SEO?
No. Most of the technical foundation is shared; GEO adds a layer about how the content is written, not a replacement for the rest.
Can it be measured?
Only partly. There is no ranking report; what can be checked is whether the assistants name you when asked, and that has to be checked by hand.
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