GEO is
SEO,
done properly.
Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT and Perplexity answer questions by quoting web pages. We structure content so that, when they answer a question about your business, your page is the one they can find, understand and quote.
This page uses the structure it describes: questions as headings, the answer first, FAQ structured data, and the full text readable with JavaScript turned off.
- What it is
- Making content easy for AI search to find, understand and quote
- Also called
- AEO · LLMO
- Built on
- Good SEO — AI answers draw on the same search indexes
- Our stance
- GEO is SEO, plus the few things that work differently
Where AI answers appear
What makes content
GEO-ready?
Ten checks for any page that should be quoted by AI search. Each one helps people and AI systems alike.
- 01
Question as the heading
Each section heading is the question a person would actually ask.
- 02
Answer first
One or two plain sentences answer it directly under the heading. Detail comes after.
- 03
Lists and tables
Steps as numbered lists, comparisons as real tables, the defined term in bold.
- 04
Short paragraphs
Three to five lines, clear heading order, and a contents list on long pages.
- 05
Self-contained sections
Each section repeats its subject instead of relying on “as above”.
- 06
Follow-up questions
Answer the related questions people ask next, as a set.
- 07
Something only you have
Your own data, real cases and first-hand experience — not a rewrite of what already ranks.
- 08
A named author
Who wrote it, why they know, and an about page that says who the company is.
- 09
Structured data
FAQ, article and organisation markup that matches what the page actually says.
- 10
Readable without scripts
The full text is in the HTML the server returns, and crawlers are allowed in.
None of this is new to good SEO. What is new is how much it matters when a machine, not a person, decides which sentence to quote.
What is
GEO?
GEO (generative engine optimisation) is making content easy for AI search to find, understand and quote. A page that is not crawled and indexed is unlikely to be quoted at all — so most of the work is good SEO.
- Full name
- Generative engine optimisation
- Where it shows
- Google AI Overviews and AI Mode, ChatGPT search, Perplexity, Copilot
- What it needs
- A page that is crawled, indexed, clearly structured and worth quoting
- What changes
- Brand mentions, self-contained sections, content that does not depend on JavaScript
- How it is measured
- AI and search-feature coverage, branded searches, citations, leads — and traffic
- What it is not
- A replacement for SEO, or a guaranteed place in an AI answer
What is different
about AI search?
Five things work differently from classic search. They come from industry research, linked at the foot of this page.
Mentions count, even without a link.
Search engines weigh links. Language models learn from text, so a brand named on trusted pages becomes more strongly tied to its topic.
Core pages and documents get quoted.
Home, pricing and about pages, documentation and PDFs are cited by AI answers more often than listing and category pages.
Pages are read in pieces.
AI systems split a page into chunks. A section that names its own subject still makes sense when it is lifted out alone.
Most AI crawlers do not run JavaScript.
Text that only appears after scripts run can be invisible to them. What matters is what the server sends.
Off-topic links help less.
Links and articles unrelated to what you do add nothing to what a model knows about you.
How do we
measure it?
When AI answers the question, fewer people click. Traffic alone under-counts the result.
AI and search-feature coverage.
For the questions that matter to you, how often you appear in AI Overviews, featured snippets and “People also ask”.
Branded searches.
More people searching your name after seeing you in an answer, read from Search Console.
Citations by others.
How often your data or views are quoted on other sites.
Leads from search.
Enquiries that started from search visibility, tracked to the form. Traffic is still measured — it is no longer the only number.
This page sets out our method, not a client result. We will publish one with dates and before-and-after numbers once it is measured. No one can guarantee a place in an AI answer.
What will
we not do?
Google is acting against tricks aimed at AI answers: self-promoting lists, fake refreshes, manipulative markup and content placed on other sites to borrow their ranking.
They can win a short-term mention. They can also cost the search rankings that AI visibility depends on.
GEO should add to SEO, never be bought at its expense.
- Self-promotion
“Best X in Hong Kong” lists on our own site that rank ourselves first.
- Fake freshness
Changing a date to make old content look updated.
- Misleading markup
Structured data that claims what the page does not say.
- Borrowed authority
Publishing on unrelated sites to borrow their ranking.
- Unchecked AI text
Mass-produced content with no person checking it.
One path,
from crawl to answer.
Every AI answer that quotes the web starts with a page that could be found. Each step depends on the one before it.
The page can be reached
Crawlers allowed in, text in the HTML.
The page is understood
Clear structure, matching structured data.
The page is the answer
A direct, self-contained answer worth citing.
Frequently
asked questions
What is GEO?
GEO, generative engine optimisation, is making content easy for AI search — Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT search, Perplexity — to find, understand and quote. AEO and LLMO are other names for the same idea.
Is GEO different from SEO?
Mostly not. AI search draws on the same indexes as classic search, so the work that ranks a page also gets it quoted. GEO adds a few things: brand mentions, self-contained sections, and content that does not depend on JavaScript.
Is SEO dead because of AI search?
No. If a page is not crawled and indexed it is unlikely to appear in AI answers at all. Good SEO is the foundation that GEO is built on.
How do you measure GEO?
Alongside traffic, we track how often a site appears in AI Overviews and other answer features, branded searches, citations by other sites, and leads that started from search.
What makes content GEO-ready?
A question as the heading, a direct answer under it, lists and tables for structure, a named author, original data, structured data that matches the text, and full content in the HTML.
Want your pages
in the answer?
Send us the questions your customers ask. We will show you which of your pages could answer them, and what stops them today.