What is GEO?
GEO — Generative Engine Optimization — is the practice of making your brand visible and favorably represented in AI-generated answers, the way SEO once meant ranking in search results.
Why it's different from SEO
Search engines rank pages; generative engines like ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, and Grok synthesize an answer from many sources and decide, in real time, whether to mention your brand at all — and if so, how favorably. There's no results page to rank on. There's just the answer, or the absence of one.
That means the signals that matter shift: clear, extractable content structure; explicit answers to the questions people actually ask; structured data engines can parse with confidence; and a track record of being cited by other trustworthy sources.
What actually moves the needle
- Clear heading structure and direct, quotable answers to real questions
- Structured data (schema.org JSON-LD) that tells engines what your content is
- An
llms.txtfile, the emerging standard for signaling AI-readable content - Being named and cited by third parties engines already trust
- A high ratio of real content to markup — pages engines can actually extract from
See our methodology page for exactly how we turn engine answers into a score, or run a free GEO content audit to check these signals on your own site right now.