What is GEO?
GEO, or generative engine optimisation, is making your website easy for AI assistants to find, understand, trust and quote. SEO helps you rank in a list of links. GEO helps you get named in the answer that ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude or Google’s AI Overviews write for someone.
Why does GEO matter now?
Because a growing share of people get an answer instead of a list. When someone asks an AI assistant for the best plumber in town or the right accountant for a small business, it writes a reply and mentions a few businesses by name. If it can’t read your website, or doesn’t trust what it finds, you aren’t one of them.
- About 30% of searches in the UK now show an AI Overview at the top of Google. Ofcom, Online Nation 2025
- 1.8bn visits to ChatGPT from the UK between January and August 2025, up from 368m a year earlier. Ofcom, Online Nation 2025
- 8% vs 15% People clicked through to a website on 8% of Google visits with an AI summary, against 15% without one. Pew Research Center, 2025
How is GEO different from SEO?
They overlap a lot. Google says there’s nothing extra you have to do to appear in its AI features, and that good SEO is the foundation. The difference is what you’re aiming for and what tends to get quoted.
| SEO | GEO | |
|---|---|---|
| The goal | Rank high in a list of links | Be named or quoted in an AI answer |
| Who reads your site | Search engine crawlers | Search crawlers and AI crawlers like GPTBot, ClaudeBot and PerplexityBot |
| What helps most | Clear titles, good structure, a sitemap, links from other sites | Direct answers, real facts and figures, cited sources, clear information about who you are |
| How you measure it | Rankings and clicks | How often you’re mentioned or cited in answers |
What actually helps a page get quoted?
The best evidence so far comes from the research paper that named GEO. Adding sources, quotations and statistics to a page made it up to 40% more visible in AI-generated answers. (Aggarwal et al., GEO: Generative Engine Optimization, KDD 2024). That was measured in a lab setting rather than inside ChatGPT itself, so treat it as a strong pointer rather than a promise. In plain terms:
- Let AI crawlers in. Check your robots.txt isn’t blocking GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot or Google-Extended. Many sites block them by accident.
- Answer real questions directly. Use headings that ask the questions customers ask, and answer in the first sentence or two underneath.
- Be specific. Prices, opening hours, areas you cover, years in business, numbers you can stand behind. Vague claims are hard to quote.
- Show your sources. Link to the studies, official data or recognised publications behind what you say.
- Say who you are. Structured data (schema) for your organisation, and author details on articles, help machines trust the page.
- Keep it fresh. Accurate dates in your sitemap tell crawlers what has changed.
Do I need an llms.txt file?
It’s optional. An llms.txt file is a short plain-text guide to your site for AI tools. Some read it, and it’s quick to add, but Google says no special files are needed for its AI features. Spyglo checks for one and counts it as a small bonus, not a must.
Quick answers about GEO
What does GEO stand for?
GEO stands for generative engine optimisation: making your website easy for AI assistants such as ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and Google’s AI Overviews to find, understand, trust and quote.
Is GEO replacing SEO?
No. GEO builds on SEO. Google says good SEO is the foundation for appearing in its AI features, and most GEO work, like clear answers, real facts and structured data, helps your normal search rankings too.
How long does GEO take to work?
Technical fixes, like letting AI crawlers in, can be picked up within days of the next crawl. Being quoted more often in AI answers usually takes weeks to months, because it also depends on your content and your reputation elsewhere.
How do I know if AI assistants can see my site?
Run a free Spyglo check. It shows which AI bots your robots.txt lets in, bot by bot, and gives your site a GEO score out of 100 from eight checks, with the fix for anything missing.
How do I check my website’s GEO?
Spyglo’s free check gives you a GEO score out of 100 from eight checks, alongside your SEO score, with a plain-English fix for anything that’s missing. It takes about a minute and you don’t need an account to see your report.