What is GEO, or Generative Engine Optimization?

/ GEO/SEO

GEO stands for "Generative Engine Optimization." If you've noticed, most people insist on renaming SEO over and over again. You might remember FEO for optimizing for Facebook, and other names that, especially from people who haven't been in the game long, get rebranded, I think, to carve out a niche that's less competitive than classic SEO.

In this article I'm not just going to give my opinion on this attempt to rename things — don't worry, I also want to show you tips for gaining authority in these generative engines, which to me are search engines all the same, since we want to show up in them whenever a user runs any kind of query. Basically, good old SEO, just for a different type of search engine. Either way, if you want to call it GEO, go ahead. I call it GEO myself, just to tell them apart 😉. What I would recommend is being consistent. On a lot of sites where I initially read "GEO," they then go on to explain it like this: "GEO is about improving visibility in AI-powered search engines." I don't know, I think if your definition of GEO includes "search engines," you might as well keep calling it SEO.

Okay, now seriously. SEO for generative search engines like ChatGPT and SearchGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot or Google AI Overviews, Google's AI Mode, among others, has certain quirks you need to keep in mind.

/ Is it important to understand the paradigm shift?

Absolutely. I don't think I need to tell you that people (you included) are changing the way they search and the platforms or channels they use to do it. Don't worry, AI hasn't come to replace SEO. It's come to add another, deeper, more conversational layer that we have to adapt to. Again.

Until now, we've been optimizing for Google, but now it's not just about getting Google to rank us — we also need models like ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode to consider us relevant.

I particularly like this article by Aleyda Solís, which includes a chart on the differences. Notice the shift in how you gain authority and popularity, where brand mentions take centre stage over classic backlinks. That's why, to build that authority, PR strategies are being prioritised over strategies based purely on getting links with high DR. If you know me, I've been making this case for years. This isn't something that came out of "new 2025 SEO" or anything like that. But it is putting the squeeze on anyone still doing 2020-style SEO.

To me, one of the big changes SEO professionals need to adapt to is how they optimize for authority. But let's cover a few basic concepts first.

Technically, here's how the comparison would go: SEO vs GEO.

• SEO: discoverability in traditional search engines.
• GEO: securing visibility in AI.

I don't know. I think both need to keep an eye on the other side, so SEO should be GEO, and vice versa.

Without SEO there's no GEO, basically.

/ So, is SEO now called GEO?

If you've made it this far and think what I'm saying is that nothing has changed, you're wrong. It's changed, a lot.

If you've understood this as SEO is dead and that now all you need to think about is GEO, and that if you have an SEO team on staff you should fire them and hire GEOs instead, you're even more wrong. In fact, I'd recommend not putting much trust in anyone who identifies solely as a "GEO," because it suggests they don't know much SEO — and you already know, without SEO…

What I want to get across in this article is that we SEOs have to adapt the way we always have, and understand new technologies and ways of searching just as we've done since, in my case, 2002. I can tell you those of us who've been around a while have lived through changes as big as this AI shift before, and we've had to adapt.

I'd recommend a series of SEO By LMV chapters made by Luis M. Villanueva with Alex Novoa, aptly named, in my personal opinion, "SEO for LLMs," where they explain perfectly how to adapt to these changes and understand how generative AI search engines work — because, as Luisma says, if you don't understand how it works, you can't optimize your SEO. Yes, that's right. Your SEO.

Call it GEO if you want, go on then 😉.