Updated July 10, 2026 · All comparisons
Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is the practice of getting your brand named, recommended and cited by AI answer engines — ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude and Google AI Overviews — when buyers ask for the best option in your category. SEO gets you ranked in links; GEO gets you spoken in answers.
A growing share of buying research starts as an AI question, and AI gives a handful of names, not ten blue links. If AI names your competitor, you lose a sale you never saw. Searches for "ai visibility" are up ~285% year-over-year (Google Keyword Planner, July 2026) — the market is waking up.
SEO optimizes for crawlers ranking pages: backlinks, titles, Core Web Vitals. GEO optimizes for models composing answers: third-party mentions and citations (review sites, directories, Reddit, YouTube, comparison pages), structured, citable content (clear claims, FAQs, schema), and consistency across sources. Brands win recommendations mostly from off-site evidence, and win citations mostly from on-site structure.
1) Baseline: run the real buyer questions ("best [category] for [use case]?") across ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini, several phrasings each, and log who's named and which sources are cited. You can do this manually in an afternoon, or run a free 15-second automated check. 2) Find the citation sources carrying your competitors and get present on them. 3) Publish citable pages — comparisons, FAQs, data — with schema. 4) Re-test monthly; answers are volatile, so judge on samples, not single runs.
Monitoring subscriptions (Profound ~$399+/mo, Peec ~€89+/mo, Otterly ~$29+/mo) track mentions over time; one-time audits (Agent Exchange, $49 once) tell you where you stand and what to fix — see the full tool comparison.
Run your free GEO baseline check →