What you’ll learn
- Where the name comes from
- GEO builds on SEO
- What the research actually found
- What you don’t need to buy
- What does help
- Does GEO work differently in each AI engine?
- Check which AI crawlers you let in
GEO, short for generative engine optimization, is the work of getting your business cited or recommended inside the answers AI tools give: ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Google’s AI Overviews and AI Mode.
Most of what’s written about it comes from agencies selling it. This guide sticks to two sources that aren’t selling anything, Google’s own documentation and the research paper that named GEO, then covers how to measure it and how to choose an agency.
What is GEO?
Generative engine optimization is the work of getting a business named, quoted or linked in answers written by AI tools such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, Copilot and Google's AI Overviews. It uses the same foundations as SEO, a crawlable site with useful pages, and adds checks on how each AI tool finds and cites sources.
Where the name comes from
The term comes from a 2023 research paper by Pranjal Aggarwal and colleagues, later accepted at the KDD 2024 conference. It described GEO as a way “to aid content creators in improving their content visibility in generative engine responses”.
Most agencies now use GEO for any work aimed at AI answers. AEO, answer engine optimisation, has no agreed meaning: some use it for featured snippets and voice search, others as another name for GEO.
GEO builds on SEO
Almost every page that ranks for GEO agrees it builds on SEO rather than replacing it. Google goes further. Its guide to AI features says: “The best practices for SEO remain relevant for AI features in Google Search (such as AI Overviews and AI Mode). There are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, nor other special optimizations necessary.”
To appear as a link in an AI Overview, Google says a page “must be indexed and eligible to be shown in Google Search with a snippet”. That’s the same requirement as normal search.
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Free strategy call ›What the research actually found
The paper’s headline is that GEO “can boost visibility by up to 40% in generative engine responses”. The three changes that did best were citing sources, quoting people and adding statistics. Making text more fluent and easier to read added 15 to 30%.
Keyword stuffing, a common SEO habit, offered “little to no improvement”. And lower-ranked pages gained the most: citing sources lifted the site ranked fifth in search by 115%, while the top-ranked site’s visibility fell 30% on average.
The limits matter as much as the results. The tests ran on a benchmark of 10,000 queries, some of them generated synthetically, plus Perplexity, where visibility rose up to 37%. ChatGPT and Google’s AI Overviews were never tested, and the metric was how much of an answer quoted a page, which tells you nothing about enquiries or sales. Results also varied by topic, by the authors’ own account. Pages that quote “up to 40%” as a promise are quoting a best case from a lab.
What you don’t need to buy
Some Singapore agencies sell llms.txt files and “AI schema” as core GEO work. Google says: “You don’t need to create new machine readable files, AI text files, or markup to appear in these features. There’s also no special schema.org structured data that you need to add.”
Structured data still helps normal search when it matches what’s on the page. There’s just no special version for AI.
What does help
Google’s list is the plain SEO list: let search engines crawl the site, link your pages to each other, keep the important content in text rather than images, make any structured data match the visible text, and keep your Google Business Profile up to date.
The research adds three changes you can make to a page this week: cite your sources, quote people who know the subject, and put real numbers in. Most GEO pages also recommend reviews and mentions on other sites, such as directories, press and forums. That’s common practice, but it hasn’t been tested the way the three page changes were.
Does GEO work differently in each AI engine?
Partly. The writing that gets quoted is much the same everywhere. What changes from one tool to the next is where it gets its sources, which crawler has to reach your site, and how much the company shows you afterwards. Those three things are documented, so start there.
| AI tool | Where its sources come from | Crawler that must reach you | What you can see as the site owner |
|---|---|---|---|
| Google AI Overviews and AI Mode | Google's search index | Googlebot | Clicks and impressions, mixed into the Web total in Search Console |
| Gemini app | Google's crawl, if Google-Extended allows it | Googlebot, with Google-Extended not blocked | No publisher report. Check by hand |
| ChatGPT search | OpenAI's own search crawler | OAI-SearchBot | Referral visits from chatgpt.com in GA4 |
| Perplexity | Its search index plus live page visits at question time | PerplexityBot and Perplexity-User | Referral visits from perplexity.ai in GA4 |
| Microsoft Copilot | Bing's index | Bingbot | Citations, cited pages and grounding queries in Bing Webmaster Tools |
| Claude | Anthropic's search crawler | Claude-SearchBot | Referral visits from claude.ai in GA4 |
The ChatGPT row is the one that catches people out. OpenAI's crawler documentation is blunt about it:
Sites that are opted out of OAI-SearchBot will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers, though can still appear as navigational links.
OpenAI, Overview of OpenAI crawlers
Perplexity says the same about its own bot. Its bot guide recommends allowing PerplexityBot if you want to appear in its results. Anthropic warns that blocking Claude-SearchBot may reduce your visibility in Claude's search answers.
Microsoft is the only company so far that reports citations to site owners. Bing Webmaster Tools added an AI Performance report in February 2026. It shows how often your pages were cited in Copilot and Bing's AI summaries, which pages, and the grounding queries the AI ran to find them. If your buyers use Windows laptops at work, that report is free and worth ten minutes a month.
What about the claims that each engine wants different content?
You'll read that Perplexity rewards sources, Claude rewards depth, ChatGPT rewards breadth and Gemini rewards schema. Those claims come from people running the same prompts through each tool and comparing the answers. None of the four companies publishes how it picks sources, the tests are small, and the results move every few months as models change.
The schema claim also runs against Google's own guidance, quoted above, that no special structured data is needed for its AI features. Four versions of one page? No. We write a single page that puts cited numbers, named sources and a plain answer near the top, which are the changes the GEO paper actually tested, and then we check it in whichever tool your buyers use.
| If most of your buyers ask | Check first | Then |
|---|---|---|
| Google, on their phone | Search Console queries and whether your page is in the AI Overview | Fix the page that ranks for the question so its answer sits in the first lines |
| ChatGPT | robots.txt allows OAI-SearchBot; chatgpt.com referrals in GA4 | Ask your ten buyer questions monthly and note which sources ChatGPT links |
| Copilot at work | Bing Webmaster Tools AI Performance report | Read the grounding queries and add answers to the pages that already get cited |
| Perplexity | robots.txt allows PerplexityBot; perplexity.ai referrals | See which competitor pages it cites, then add dated, sourced numbers to your page on the same question |
Check which AI crawlers you let in
Every AI company runs more than one bot: one collects pages to train future models, and another fetches pages to answer search questions. Shutting out the training bot keeps your content out of the next model, while shutting out the search bot removes you from the answers people read today. Plenty of sites wanted only the first and got both, because one catch-all rule in robots.txt covered every bot.
| robots.txt name | Company | What it is for | If you block it |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPTBot | OpenAI | Training future models | Your pages stay out of training. OpenAI treats it separately from search |
| OAI-SearchBot | OpenAI | ChatGPT search answers | You drop out of ChatGPT search answers |
| ClaudeBot | Anthropic | Training future models | Your pages stay out of training |
| Claude-SearchBot | Anthropic | Claude search results | Anthropic says your visibility may fall |
| PerplexityBot | Perplexity | Perplexity search results | Perplexity says to allow it if you want to appear |
| Google-Extended | Gemini training and grounding | Gemini can't use your pages. Google Search is not affected |
Open yoursite.com/robots.txt in a browser and search it for the names in the table. A line such as "User-agent: *" followed by "Disallow: /" blocks every bot, AI or not. Some security plugins and CDN settings also block AI bots by default, so check those settings as well. Do this before you pay anyone for GEO.
Google's crawler page states that Google-Extended "does not impact a site's inclusion in Google Search nor is it used as a ranking signal in Google Search." So blocking it only decides whether Gemini can learn from your pages; your search rankings stay where they are.
How to measure it on a small budget
Paid tools track AI answers at scale, but a small business can start without one.
Write down ten questions your buyers ask, such as “best kitchen renovation in Tampines”. Once a month, ask them in ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google, and note who gets named. Treat it as a sample, not a score: AI answers change from one ask to the next.
Google doesn’t report AI traffic separately. It says sites appearing in AI features “are included in the overall search traffic in Search Console”, inside the Web total. Visits from ChatGPT and similar tools often show up as direct traffic, so ask new enquiries how they found you.
Two free reports close part of the gap. In GA4, build an exploration that filters sessions by source for chatgpt.com, perplexity.ai, gemini.google.com, copilot.microsoft.com and claude.ai, and compare them with your usual SEO metrics. In Bing Webmaster Tools, the AI Performance report counts citations directly. Put both next to your monthly question check and you have a three-line AI report that costs nothing.
How to choose a GEO agency
Ask them to run a few of your buyers’ questions live in the meeting and show you who gets named today. Ask what they’ll measure, how often, and how they connect a mention to an enquiry. Ask what they’ll change on your site and what they’ll do off it, such as reviews and directory listings. Ask what you keep if you stop.
Walk away from a guarantee. Google’s own page says “Indexing and serving isn’t guaranteed”, and no agency controls what an AI tool says. Be wary, too, of an SEO package renamed GEO at a higher price, and of reports full of visibility scores with no enquiries in them.
PSG no longer applies
Some GEO agencies still advertise the Productivity Solutions Grant. Enterprise Singapore stopped taking new PSG applications on 29 September 2026: “EDG, MRA and PSG will cease on 29 September 2026. From 30 September onwards, apply for business grant support under the EDGE Grant.”
How we do it
We include GEO in our SEO plans rather than selling it as a second retainer, and each month we run your buyers’ questions through the AI tools and show you where you appear. Nobody can promise you a mention, so if an agency guarantees one, ask to see its evidence.
Frequently asked questions
What is GEO in SEO?
GEO is the part of SEO aimed at AI answers: getting your business cited or recommended by ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google’s AI Overviews. Google says the same SEO best practices apply.
Does GEO replace SEO?
No. Google says there are no extra requirements to appear in AI Overviews beyond normal search, and almost every GEO guide calls it an extension of SEO.
Do I need an llms.txt file?
Not for Google. Google says you don’t need new machine-readable files, AI text files or special structured data to appear in its AI features.
Can an agency guarantee ChatGPT will mention us?
No. Google says indexing and serving isn’t guaranteed, and no agency controls what an AI tool answers. Treat a guarantee as a red flag.
How do I know if AI tools mention my business?
Ask the questions your buyers ask in each AI tool once a month and note who gets named. Google counts AI Overview traffic inside the Web total in Search Console.
Do I need a different GEO strategy for ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google?
Mostly no. The writing that gets cited is the same. What differs is the crawler each tool uses and what it reports back, so check that each search bot can reach your site and focus on the tool your buyers use.
Should I block AI crawlers?
Block the training bots if you don't want your content used to train models. Keep OAI-SearchBot, PerplexityBot, Claude-SearchBot and Bingbot allowed if you want to appear in AI answers. Blocking Google-Extended does not affect Google Search.
Check where you stand
See how our AI SEO works, and book a free check where we run your buyers’ questions through the AI tools with you. If you want the wider plan, our SEO services cover the site work GEO depends on.
Sources, last checked 3 October 2026
- Google Search Central, AI features and your website: developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/ai-features
- Aggarwal and others, GEO: Generative Engine Optimization (KDD 2024): arxiv.org/abs/2311.09735
- Enterprise Singapore, Productivity Solutions Grant: enterprisesg.gov.sg/financial-support/productivity-solutions-grant
- OpenAI, Overview of OpenAI crawlers: developers.openai.com/api/docs/bots
- Perplexity, Perplexity crawlers: docs.perplexity.ai/guides/bots
- Anthropic, Does Anthropic crawl data from the web: support.claude.com
- Microsoft Bing, Introducing AI Performance in Bing Webmaster Tools: blogs.bing.com
- Google Search Central, Google common crawlers: developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/google-common-crawlers
