What is Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)?
Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is the practice of optimizing your website so it is retrieved, reranked, and cited when users ask questions in AI-powered products like Perplexity, ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, and Claude. Sometimes called AI SEO, it's the practice of making your content discoverable, extractable, and citable by AI systems (Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, Copilot).
Traditional SEO gets you ranked. AI SEO gets you cited.
By the numbers
~45% of Google searches show AI Overviews; brands are 6.5× more likely to be cited via third-party sources than their own domain; optimized content gets cited ~3× more often than non-optimized.
Traditional SEO
The click economy
You rank → user clicks → you get traffic. Success = position in SERP.
GEO
The citation economy
You get cited → user trusts you → you earn authority. Success = being a source in an LLM answer.
Your content must be findable (crawlable, indexable), trustworthy (E-E-A-T), and extraction-ready (clear structure, short answer blocks), not just rankable.
💡Example on this site