A growing share of buyers no longer search for "IT support company" and scroll through ten blue links. They ask ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, or Google's AI Overview: "Who should I use for IT support for a 30-person company?" — and they get a short list with a recommendation. Generative engine optimization (GEO) is the discipline of making sure your business is on that list, described accurately. This article explains how AI assistants choose what to cite, how GEO differs from classic SEO, and what to do about it.
What GEO actually means
Generative engine optimization is the practice of structuring your website and your brand's presence across the web so that large language models can find your business, understand what it does, trust the information, and cite it in generated answers. Where SEO targets a ranking position, GEO targets being mentioned — ideally as the recommended option, with your facts stated correctly.
How AI assistants decide what to cite
Modern assistants combine two sources: what the model learned during training, and what it retrieves live from the web when you ask (ChatGPT search, Perplexity, Gemini, and AI Overviews all retrieve). In practice, being cited depends on:
- Being retrievable. The assistant's search layer has to find you. ChatGPT search draws heavily on Bing's index; Gemini and AI Overviews on Google's; Perplexity on its own crawler plus others. If you are not indexed, you do not exist.
- Being extractable. Models prefer pages where the answer is stated plainly: what the company does, for whom, where, at what price model, with what guarantees. Vague marketing copy is hard to quote.
- Being consistent. The same name, description, services, and contact details on your site, in directories, on LinkedIn, and in reviews. Inconsistency reads as unreliability.
- Being structured. Schema.org markup (Organization, Service, FAQPage, Article) and clean headings tell machines exactly what each page is about.
- Being corroborated. Mentions on third-party sites — directories, partner pages, reviews, press — give the model reasons to trust your own claims.
SEO vs GEO: what overlaps and what is new
| Aspect | SEO | GEO |
|---|---|---|
| Goal | Rank high in search results | Be cited and recommended in AI answers |
| Unit of success | Position, clicks | Mentions, accuracy of description, share of answers |
| Content style | Keyword-targeted pages | Direct, factual, quotable answers to real questions |
| Technical basis | Crawlability, speed, links | The same, plus structured data, entity consistency, llms.txt, open robots rules for AI crawlers |
| Off-site | Backlinks | Consistent mentions and facts across the web |
The good news: everything that makes a site good for SEO — fast, well-structured, authoritative, honest — also helps GEO. GEO adds a layer on top rather than replacing the foundation.
A practical GEO checklist
- Say plainly what you do, on every relevant page. "Magonit is an IT services company providing managed IT, cloud, AI automation… to organizations of 2–100 users, under a fixed monthly agreement." A model can quote that. "We empower digital transformation" it cannot.
- Answer real questions in your own words. FAQ sections with direct answers ("What does it cost?", "What size of company do you work with?", "What are your response times?") are exactly what assistants extract.
- Add structured data. Organization (with name, logo, description, contact, areas of expertise), Service pages, FAQPage, BreadcrumbList, and Article/BlogPosting for content.
- Let AI crawlers in. Check your robots.txt allows GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, Google-Extended and the others — many sites block them by default and then wonder why they are invisible.
- Publish an llms.txt. A plain-text summary of your business and pages at
/llms.txt(and a fuller/llms-full.txt) gives models a clean, authoritative source to read. - Register with Bing Webmaster Tools as well as Google Search Console. ChatGPT search leans on Bing; being absent there is a common and invisible gap.
- Make your facts consistent everywhere. Company name, description, services, email, and (if applicable) address and phone should match on your site, LinkedIn, directories, and review platforms.
- Get mentioned by others. Partner pages, supplier listings, industry directories, and reviews corroborate what you say about yourself.
- Measure it. Once a month, ask each major assistant the questions your customers would ask, and record whether you appear, how you are described, and who else is named. Adjust content where the description is wrong or missing.
What GEO cannot do
No one can guarantee that an AI assistant will recommend you; the models change, the retrieval changes, and the answer varies with the question. What can be done is systematic: be findable, be quotable, be consistent, be corroborated, and check the results regularly. Providers who promise "guaranteed top placement in ChatGPT" are selling something that does not exist.
Where to start: ask ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity today what they know about your company and who they would recommend in your field. The answers — including the wrong ones — are your to-do list.