What is GEO (Generative Engine Optimization)?
Search is changing shape. A growing share of questions are now answered directly by AI engines — ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Google's AI overviews — which read the web, synthesize an answer, and (sometimes) cite their sources. Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is the practice of making sure your content is the source they reach for.
Why GEO matters
When a model answers a question, it doesn't show ten blue links. It shows one answer. If your page is structured so the model can extract a clear, attributable claim, you get cited — and citations are the new clicks. If it can't, you're invisible, even if you'd rank well in classic search.
The two questions GEO asks
- Answerability — does your page directly answer the questions it targets? Models reward content that states the answer plainly, near the top, under a heading that matches the question.
- Quotability — are your claims phrased so a model can lift a sentence and cite it? Specific, self-contained statements beat vague, context-dependent prose.
Where to start
- Lead with the answer. Put a one- or two-sentence direct answer right under each question-style heading.
- Use clear, descriptive headings that mirror how people ask.
- Make claims self-contained: a quoted sentence should still make sense on its own.
- Keep the page crawlable for AI bots (don't block GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot in robots.txt unless you mean to).
GEO doesn't replace SEO — it builds on it. The fundamentals (good titles, structure, fast and crawlable pages) still matter. GEO just adds a new audience: the models.
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