Generative engine optimization (GEO)

A generative engine writes an answer instead of listing links. ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, Copilot and Google’s AI Overviews all work this way: they search the web, read several sources, and compose a reply that names a few businesses. GEO is the practice of being one of the sources they trust enough to name.

The emphasis in GEO is on sources and agreement. An engine is confident about a business when its name, address, services and prices match across your site, your listings and other people’s pages. GEO is the job of creating and checking that agreement.

GEO overlaps with answer engine optimization (AEO), which focuses on the question and the wording of the answer, and with AI SEO, which focuses on how it fits with ranking in Google and Bing. The overview is on SEO & AI search.

• One description, everywhere. The same name, address, services, hours and prices on your site, Google Business Profile, Bing Places, Apple Business Connect and Yelp.
• Crawler access. We check robots.txt and platform settings, and open the door to GPTBot, ClaudeBot and PerplexityBot when a setting has shut them out. We add an llms.txt file that says what your site covers.
• Structured data. Schema markup that tells machines what kind of business you are, where you are and what you charge, so they do not have to guess.
• Third-party mentions. Directories, partner pages and reviews that confirm you are real. Engines lean on them when they decide who to name.
• Pages that can be quoted. One page per real customer question, with the answer in the first sentence.

See the seven-step version in our guide to getting recommended by AI search.

Every week we write down six to ten questions a real customer would type and ask each one in ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Claude, in a logged-out, temporary or incognito chat so personal history does not skew the answer. We record three things: was the business named, which of its pages was cited, and who was named instead. That log is the scoreboard, next to clicks, impressions and positions from Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools. Answers change from day to day, so each row carries a date. You see the same table every month. That is how we measure our own site; for clients, the Visible plan checks ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google every month, and the Grow plan adds Copilot and tracks who gets named instead. The full method is on our search page, and the free visibility check is the first run of it for your business.

We run this on our own site and on the Carson River Resort site, and we can walk you through it before you pay.

For a year, an international trading company paid a search provider every month, and its site had never been registered with Google Search Console or Bing Webmaster Tools. We took over search on September 20, 2026. We don’t publish the company’s name. Its first month against the month before:

• 3.8× more Google AI answers. Its pages appeared in Google’s AI answers 1,204 times in the first month, up from 314.
• Nine places higher on Google. Average position 15.5, up from 24.4.
• Three new guides, 678 AI answers. They appeared in AI answers 437, 145 and 96 times in their first weeks.
• 41 Copilot citations in one week. Microsoft Copilot cited a single guide 41 times.

On October 23, 2026, Perplexity named Carson River Resort for 8 of 8 questions we track for it. The site went live on September 18, 2026, five weeks earlier. Read the full case study.

Start with the free visibility check. For a place-specific version, see GEO in Alameda and the East Bay. Related: answer engine optimization and AI SEO.