What is GEO?
GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) is the discipline of getting a brand cited as a source inside the answers produced by generative AI systems — ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot. Put plainly: optimising for AI visibility.
How is it different from SEO?
SEO aims at a ranking on the results page, and the measure of success is the click. GEO aims at being cited inside the generated answer, and the measure of success is the citation. A user who gets an answer may never visit the site at all — but if your brand was named in that answer, you made the shortlist.
The two are not rivals; they are complementary. On a site without solid technical SEO, GEO work has nothing to stand on.
How do AI systems choose their sources?
When models compose an answer they look at three things: whether the content opens with a clear definition sentence, whether the information is structured (schema.org, heading hierarchy, lists), and whether the brand is described consistently. Vague, marketing-heavy copy does not get quoted.
What to do in practice
- Lead with a definition: answer "what is X?" in one verifiable sentence at the top of every page.
- Use question headings: turn H2s and H3s into the questions people actually ask.
- Add structured data: Organization, Service, FAQPage and BreadcrumbList schemas.
- Publish an llms.txt: summarise the brand in machine-readable plain text.
- Open crawler access: make sure GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, ClaudeBot, Google-Extended and PerplexityBot are not blocked in robots.txt.
- Use numbers: concrete detail — timeframes, scope, price ranges — raises the odds of being quoted.
How long until it shows?
The technical setup takes one to two weeks. Systems recrawling the content and that surfacing in answers usually takes 4–12 weeks. GEO is therefore best treated as infrastructure, not as a campaign.
How is it measured?
A defined set of queries is run each month across the different platforms, recording whether the brand appears in the answer, where it is named and which page is cited. Racoun reports this in the client panel with per-platform charts.
