Get cited inside AI search.
Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is how you show up inside ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Google's AI Overviews — cited as the source, not just ranked in a list of links. It's the layer on top of SEO, built for a search landscape where the answer increasingly arrives before the click.
Figures from our own portfolio work, detailed in the GEO guide. Classic informational search traffic is shrinking as AI answers absorb more queries; the operators who adapt their content and technical setup for citation now compound that advantage before it becomes table stakes.
Optimizing for the passage, not the page.
An AI engine answering a question interprets the query, retrieves a set of candidate sources, synthesizes an answer, and attaches a handful of citations to whatever it leaned on. GEO is the practice of making sure your content is both in that retrieved set and the easiest source in it to quote — a clean claim near the top of a section, a specific number or date attached to it, and a structure that lets the relevant passage stand alone.
It's not a rebrand of SEO and it's not a fad. It's a genuinely different unit of optimization: SEO earns a click on a document, GEO earns a citation on a passage. Both still depend on the same floor — a crawlable, fast, well-structured site — which is why we treat GEO as an extension of SEO work, not a replacement for it.
SEO, GEO, and AEO on one foundation.
Three disciplines, one technical base. We rarely run one without the others.
SEO
Classic ranking fundamentals: technical health, on-page, links, Core Web Vitals. Still the floor everything else stands on.
How SEO actually works in 2026 →GEO
Generative Engine Optimization — the strategy layer for getting cited inside AI-generated answers instead of just ranked in a list of links.
The complete GEO guide →AEO
Answer Engine Optimization — the technical implementation: entities, schema, and Q&A structure that make content machine-extractable.
The AEO build sheet →What's in the 90-day sprint.
llms.txt and llms-full.txt setup
A plain-text index at your domain root telling AI crawlers which pages are canonical and what each covers. An hour of work, published at the root, done right the first time.
Schema markup retrofit
Article, FAQPage, HowTo, and BreadcrumbList across your top pages — complete, not half-done. Half-implemented schema confuses engines more than none at all.
Citation-shaped content rewrites
Headings phrased as questions, one citable fact per section, the answer in the first 50 words. We rewrite for the passage-level extraction AI engines actually do.
Quarterly citation tracking
Manual, structured testing of your target queries across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Claude — the closest thing to a Search Console for citations, because none exists yet.
Original-data publication plan
Engines favor sources with a specific number, date, or name attached to a claim. We help you turn what you already know into citable, dated data points.
The GEO / AEO library.
Everything we've written on GEO, AEO, and AI-search, in one place.
Generative Engine Optimization (GEO): the complete 2026 guide
The operating manual: how citation works, what to change on your site, and how to measure it.
Answer Engine Optimization: how to get cited by ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini
The engineering companion to GEO — entities, schema, and Q&A formatting.
GA4 for GEO: measure the AI-search traffic GA4 hides in 2026
The exact channel-group, regex, and event setup to surface ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini referrals.
llms.txt explained: the one-hour setup that gets you cited by AI
A plain-text index at your domain root. Costs nothing, measurably increases citations.
Landing pages in the AI-search era: copy that converts AND gets cited
Writing copy that converts humans and gets your product cited in ChatGPT answers.
How SEO actually works in 2026: the GEO-aware playbook
SEO didn't die — it absorbed GEO. The full 2026 playbook for both surfaces.
Zero-click search in 2026: how to win when nobody clicks
Converting visibility into influence when the answer IS the result.
Programmatic SEO in 2026: scale without getting demoted
Where the line sits between pages that rank and pages that get you demoted.
Local SEO in 2026: ranking in Maps, Google, and AI answers
The Map Pack, classic organic, and AI answers that recommend a single business.
Hidden SEO tactics that still rank in 2026 (post-AI-Overview edition)
Ten tactics that survived AI Overviews and still move traffic.
Common questions.
What's the difference between SEO and GEO? +
SEO gets your page ranked in a list of links a human clicks through. GEO gets your content cited directly inside an AI-generated answer — ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Google's AI Overviews — where there's often no click at all, just a citation. GEO isn't a replacement for SEO; it's the layer on top of it, and both draw on the same technical foundation (crawlability, schema, structured content).
How do you measure something GA4 doesn't track out of the box? +
GA4 buries AI-search referrals inside Direct and Organic by default. We set up custom channel groupings and regex rules to surface ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini referral traffic specifically, then pair that with manual citation testing — running your target queries against each engine on a cadence and logging whether and how you're cited. There's no Search Console for AI citations yet, so this part stays manual.
Do you guarantee citations in ChatGPT or AI Overviews? +
No. Nobody honestly can — citation behavior is controlled by model providers, changes without notice, and isn't something any agency can promise on a specific query. What we commit to is the work that measurably improves citation odds: technical retrievability, citation-shaped content structure, and complete schema, tracked quarterly so you can see the trend.
Does GEO replace our existing SEO program? +
No — it sits on top of it. If your technical SEO or content foundation is broken, GEO work won't fix that and citations will stay thin regardless. We typically start with the SEO + GEO Audit so we know which layer actually has the leverage before recommending a GEO-only sprint.
What's included in the audit versus the 90-day sprint? +
The SEO + GEO Audit (4 weeks) is diagnostic: a technical teardown, live citation tests across your top commercial queries, and a sequenced execution plan. The GEO sprint (90 days) is the execution: llms.txt setup, schema retrofit, citation-shaped content rewrites, and quarterly citation tracking, as detailed above. Most engagements run the audit first.
How long until we see results? +
The technical floor (llms.txt, schema) can measurably move citation behavior within about 60 days based on what we've seen across other GEO work. Content-side gains — rewriting existing pages to be more citable — compound over a longer horizon, similar to classic SEO. We report progress quarterly rather than promising a fixed date, because citation behavior is provider-controlled and genuinely does move on its own schedule.
Start the GEO audit.
4-week diagnostic, then a scoped 90-day sprint if it makes sense. No commitment · <24h reply.
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