GEO (generative engine optimisation)

GEO is the newest of the three "optimisations". Where SEO aims at a ranked list of results, GEO aims at being included inside an answer an AI assistant writes.

Assistants draw on what they learned in training and, increasingly, on pages they read live from search. So GEO starts with ordinary SEO: pages that can be crawled and indexed. It then adds:

• Crawler access: letting the AI companies' documented crawlers read your public pages, and making sure bot protection doesn't block them.
• Clear, consistent facts: what you do, where, for whom and at what price, stated the same way on your site, your Google Business Profile and listings.
• Mentions elsewhere: reputable sites that talk about you, which assistants treat as evidence.
• Measurement: asking assistants your customers' questions regularly, because single answers vary.

GEO can't be done with tricks such as hidden text or pages shown only to bots; that is cloaking, which search engines' spam policies forbid.

In practice

In practice, a small business starts GEO by checking that AI crawlers can reach its site, then making its service pages say plainly what it offers, where and at what price. After that, it tracks a fixed set of customer questions in each assistant every week, notes which competitors and sources are named, and fixes the gaps it finds, one listing or page at a time.