What is GEO (generative engine optimisation)?
What does GEO mean in practice?
Ask three people and you get three definitions. The paper that named it, published in 2023 and accepted to KDD 2024, framed GEO as a way to help content creators improve visibility in generative engine responses1. Since then, the label has been stuck on many different services.
A guide from a vendor that sells AI visibility tracking says AEO (answer engine optimisation) and GEO usually describe the same commercial job, and that AEO has no universally controlled definition2. AEO, LLMO and "AI search optimisation" are used as near-synonyms or as separate disciplines, depending on who is speaking.
What does Google say?
Google's Search Central guidance says optimising for generative AI search is still SEO3. The same guidance says Google Search ignores llms.txt files, so creating one neither helps nor harms visibility in Google Search3. It also says there is no requirement to break content into small chunks for AI3.
That covers Google only. Other AI systems are outside this guidance, and nobody outside them can promise how they choose what to cite.
For ZFD: We treat GEO as part of SEO and not as a separate product. The comparison is in AEO vs GEO vs SEO.
Easily confused with
GEO vs SEO
Making pages findable and useful in search. GEO is often presented as something different. Google's guidance treats it as the same job3.
GEO vs AEO
Answer engine optimisation. Used loosely, often as another name for the same idea.
GEO vs AI Overviews
One Google feature. GEO is a label that spans several systems.
GEO vs llms.txt
A proposed file meant to point AI assistants to a site's content. Google says Search ignores it3.
Buzzword alert
"We'll make you visible in ChatGPT."
Usually means: a promise about a system the agency does not control, presented as a deliverable.
Ask: What exactly will you change on our site, and how will we see the effect?
"GEO audit"
Usually means: an SEO checklist with a new cover.
Ask: Which findings would an ordinary SEO audit have missed?
"Proprietary AI ranking"
Usually means: a tool score with no stated method.
Ask: How is the score built, and what does it predict?
FAQ
Is GEO different from SEO?
Google's guidance treats optimising for generative AI search as SEO3. Vendors often present GEO as a separate discipline. Ask what would change in practice.
Is GEO the same as AEO?
Mostly. A vendor guide says the two usually describe the same commercial job and differ mainly in history2. Ask the person using the word what they mean.
Where did the term come from?
From a 2023 research paper by Aggarwal and co-authors1. The wider market took the word and stretched it.
Let’s find what’s actually working.
Next step. Want to know where you stand in search and AI answers? See our SEO and AI visibility service.