AI search · Glossary
What is GEO (generative engine optimization)?
GEO, or generative engine optimization, is improving how often and how accurately AI systems such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Overviews mention, cite and recommend a brand in the answers they generate.
Written by Noor KhanWhy GEO matters
Buyers increasingly ask AI assistants for recommendations instead of scanning search results. If an assistant doesn't know your brand, or describes it wrongly, you're invisible in that conversation regardless of your rankings.
How GEO works
- Many AI answers are built by retrieving web pages and summarizing relevant passages.
- Models also draw on what the wider web says about a brand: reviews, mentions, profiles and press.
- Clear, consistent, well-structured information is more likely to be retrieved and repeated accurately.
How to apply it
- Get the SEO foundation right first: crawlable, indexable, well-structured pages.
- Structure key pages answer-first so passages can be extracted.
- Make your brand's identity and offering consistent across your site and profiles.
- Earn mentions on credible third-party sites in your field.
- Check how assistants describe you and your competitors, and fix the gaps.
Example
When someone asks ChatGPT 'who are good healthcare SEO consultants?', the consultants named are usually the ones with clear positioning, specialist content and mentions across the web.
Common mistake
Treating GEO as a separate set of tricks. Strong SEO covers most of it; the rest is brand clarity and third-party presence.