GEO Guide: Visibility in AI Search

GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) is the work of getting your content used as a source in the answers of AI search systems such as ChatGPT, Google’s AI Overviews, Perplexity and Claude. The main question is whether it takes anything different from SEO. Google’s own answer is no. This page gives the short answer first, then the order in which to read the rest.

The short answer: what helps, and what you do not need

According to Google’s AI features documentation (as of October 2026), there are no additional requirements or special optimizations to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode. The page needs to be indexed and eligible to be shown with a snippet. The same document says you do not need to create new machine-readable files, AI text files or markup for this. Google’s guide to optimizing for generative AI search points the same way: it treats AEO and GEO as SEO applied to AI search experiences, and says you do not need llms.txt, splitting content into small chunks, or rewriting for AI.

That applies to Google. ChatGPT, Perplexity and Claude choose sources by their own rules, and none of them guarantees visibility. In practice the order comes out like this:

1. Keep the SEO basics solid: crawlable, indexed, fast pages on correct URLs.
2. Write from your own knowledge. Google says generic summaries of existing content add little. Add concrete examples, your own measurements and sourced figures.
3. Know which bots you allow. Check whether your robots.txt blocks search bots, training bots, or both.
4. Measure. Google says this traffic is counted in the Search Console Performance report under the “Web” search type, so there is no separate report. For mentions in places like ChatGPT, you track by asking the same set of questions regularly and recording the answers.

On llms.txt, schema and brand mentions, I wrote separately what is proven and what is assumption in the articles below.

In what order to read

1. Concepts first

• What is GEO and how it differs from SEO: core definition and components
• GEO vs SEO: why it does not replace SEO and how to split the budget
• What is AEO: why it gets confused with GEO
• What is AI Overviews: how AI Mode differs and what it shows in Turkey
• What is AI Mode: Google’s conversational search
• What is Perplexity: how it picks its sources
• Zero-click search: what visibility means when nobody clicks

2. Then applying it

• How your website shows up in ChatGPT: steps you can take today
• ChatGPT source selection and the Bing layer: where sources come from when it searches
• AI bots and robots.txt: GPTBot, ClaudeBot, CCBot: which to allow
• What is llms.txt: what it does and does not do
• Does schema affect AI visibility: evidence versus assumption
• E-E-A-T: why experience, expertise, authority and trust stand out
• Brand mentions: why unlinked mentions matter
• Content freshness: why old pages fall behind
• Does Google penalize AI content: Google’s official position
• Local businesses: Google Business Profile and reviews

3. Measuring last

• How to measure AI visibility: manual tracking with a fixed question set, and ready-made tools
• Click loss in AI search: checking your own data in Search Console
• AI traffic in GA4: finding the AI Assistant channel

If you are choosing a visibility-tracking platform, first ask: which platforms, languages and frequency does the tool use for the same question set, and how does it record the result? The measuring article in this series describes a method you can also run by hand on the same logic.

If you would like a first look at your own site, the free analysis tool scans your address and reports the technical and content signals a machine can measure (it does not measure whether AI answers mention you). If you would rather go through the findings together and turn them into a prioritised to-do list, the Visibility Session is a paid, two-hour one-to-one working session.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where should I start with GEO?

First check that your site is indexed and can be shown in Google, then strengthen your most important existing pages with your own knowledge. Reading the concept articles does not replace that.

Do I need to set up llms.txt?

According to Google, no: Google Search ignores these files, so they neither help nor hurt there. The effect on other AI tools is a separate matter, covered in the llms.txt article.

GEO support

If you want to review together where your site stands against this picture, you can write through the AI Consulting page. The first conversation is paid.