GEO: getting cited when the AI is the one answering

What GEO means

GEO stands for Generative Engine Optimization: optimising for generative engines, meaning the AI assistants that answer by writing a text rather than displaying a list of links — ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini, and Google's AI Overviews.

Its object is simple to state: getting your brand named inside that answer. Not indexed, not ranked: named.

Two neighbouring terms come up. AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) describes the same subject seen from the "answer engine" side; in practice the two are used interchangeably. AI search optimization and AI SEO are the common informal phrasings. We use GEO because that is the term the discipline organised itself under.

Why SEO is no longer enough

SEO optimises a page so it appears in a list. The user sees ten results and chooses.

An AI does not present ten results. It reads pages, synthesises them, and names two or three. Three consequences, and they are brutal:

There is no position any more. You are cited or you are not. No rank tracker will tell you where you stand, because there is no "where".

It is not your site being read. In our measurements, the sources AIs consult most are rarely brand sites: they are forums, trade directories, comparison sites, tourist boards, review sites. The AI reads what other people write about you. What is actually in the sources.

The answer is not stable. The same question asked three times gives three different answers, sometimes naming different brands. A single test establishes nothing. Why one test proves nothing.

How an AI picks the names it cites

Schematically, in three steps.

1. It reformulates your question into queries. "Which campsite in Normandy with an indoor pool" becomes several searches, not one.
2. It reads a small number of pages. Three to eight, usually. That is where everything is decided: if none of the pages read names you, you cannot appear in the answer, however good your own site is.
3. It writes a synthesis and names. It favours what is repeated from one source to another, what is phrased factually and attributably, and what matches the constraint in the question precisely.

Hence the central rule of GEO: your visibility depends as much on other people's pages as on your own.

The levers, most to least effective

Ordered by what our measurements show, not by what is easiest to sell.

1. Be present on the sources the AI reads in your market. Sector directories, comparison sites, tourist boards, specialist press, forums, review sites. This is lever number one, and it sits almost entirely off your site. You still have to know which ones: they change completely from one sector to the next.

2. Be identifiable through a precise constraint, not a category. "Campsite in Normandy" only brings up directories. "Campsite with a heated indoor pool near Mont-Saint-Michel" brings up named properties. AIs excel at the specific — that is where the room is.

3. Write attributable facts. Figures, dates, named characteristics, explicit comparisons. An AI reproduces a marketing promise badly and a data point well. "Delivery within 24 hours in mainland France" gets cited; "ultra-fast delivery" does not.

4. Make your pages machine-readable. Headings that pose the question, the answer in the first paragraph, structured data, no content locked inside JavaScript. Necessary, but very insufficient on its own — this is the part SEO already covered.

5. Cover your customers' languages. From our measurements on Normandy campsites: of 18 sources consulted in Dutch, 11 are never read in French. A business can be perfectly present in its home-language ecosystem and entirely absent from the one serving its foreign customers, without ever knowing.

Measure before acting

Everything above is general. What matters is specific to your market: which sources, which competitors, which questions.

That is what a GEO audit establishes: 40 questions written for your market, put to three AI assistants, three times each — 360 measurements. The report gives your citation rate, your recommendation rate, who is named in your place, and which sources are read in your market.

We publish complete measurements, sector by sector, to show what that looks like: e-commerce, hotels, campsites.

Frequently asked about GEO

Are GEO and AEO the same thing? In practice, yes. Generative Engine Optimization stresses the engine that generates text, Answer Engine Optimization the fact that it answers instead of listing. Same ground, same method.

Does GEO replace SEO? No. AIs read the web, and much of that web is still found through classic engines. A site invisible in SEO is invisible to the sources an AI consults. GEO adds to SEO, it does not replace it.

How long before an effect shows? AIs re-read the web continuously, without the indexing delay of a classic engine. A new presence on a read source can show up within weeks. Conversely, nothing guarantees it holds: which is why measuring over time makes sense.

Can you pay to be cited? No, there is no advertising slot inside an assistant's answer today. That is what makes the subject interesting: the place is earned, not bought.