What generative engine optimisation means

Generative engine optimisation, or GEO, is the practice of making your business visible inside AI-generated answers rather than inside a ranked list of links. You will also see it called AEO, answer engine optimisation. The terms are used more or less interchangeably.

Some of what is written about it is opportunistic. A meaningful portion of GEO advice is standard technical SEO with a new label attached, sold at a premium because the label is unfamiliar. It is worth being able to tell the difference.

What is genuinely the same

Generative engines are largely reading the same web that crawlers read. So the foundations do not change. A site that loads quickly, is crawlable, has a coherent structure, uses correct headings and covers its subject properly is in a better position for both. If somebody tells you that GEO makes traditional SEO obsolete, they are selling something.

What is genuinely different

The difference is in what the system does with what it reads. A search engine ranks documents. A generative engine synthesises an answer and cites a few sources. Those are different tasks, and they reward different properties.

Ambiguity is fatal rather than forgivable

A human reader lands on a homepage that says "We deliver excellence in bespoke solutions" and scrolls down to work out what the company does. A model has no such patience, and it will not confidently cite a business it cannot categorise. Vague positioning that merely wastes a human's time will get you excluded outright.

Structure determines extractability

To be cited, a passage has to survive being lifted out of its context. Content organised as explicit questions with direct answers, definitions stated plainly before being elaborated, and claims attached to their sources is far more likely to be quoted than the same information woven through five paragraphs of narrative.

This is why FAQ sections have become disproportionately valuable. Not because FAQ schema is magic, but because the format forces you to write a self-contained answer to a specific question.

Corroboration matters more than authority

Classic SEO rewards authoritative links pointing at you. Generative systems appear to weight consistency across sources. If your company description, service list and location say one thing on your site and something different on three directories, a model has conflicting evidence and resolves it by citing someone else.

Tidying up inconsistent business listings is unglamorous work with no obvious ranking payoff. For AI visibility it is foundational.

How to check where you stand

You do not need a tool for a first look. Open ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google's AI mode, and ask each the questions a buyer would ask before choosing a supplier in your category. Not your brand name — the category. "Who are the best suppliers of X in Y?" "What should I look for when choosing a Z?"

Record whether you appear, how you are described when you do, and who gets cited instead. Repeat it monthly. That simple exercise tells you more than most paid dashboards, and it costs nothing.

Whether it is worth investing in

It depends on one thing: whether your buyers research before they buy.

If people compare options, ask for recommendations or read up on your category first, those conversations are increasingly happening inside an assistant, and you are either mentioned in them or you are not. If your customers find you because they drove past your premises, the money is better spent elsewhere and I would tell you so.

The honest position is that this is early. The systems change behaviour without notice, the measurement is immature, and anyone claiming a reliable methodology is overstating it. What is not in doubt is the direction of travel, and the foundational work — clear entities, clean structure, consistent facts — is worth doing regardless, because it makes you easier to understand for humans too.