The Shift: From Search to Answer
SEO helps people find useful pages through search. It also makes those pages easier for search systems to crawl and understand.
ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google's AI Overviews can also assemble direct answers from multiple sources. Sometimes a user will visit the cited page; sometimes the answer will satisfy the question without a click.
The practical question is: can these systems identify the business correctly and support their answer with reliable sources?
What is Generative Engine Optimization?
Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is the work of improving how a business is found, understood and represented in AI-generated answers.
It overlaps with SEO, but puts more emphasis on clear business facts, useful source material, consistent identity information and independent evidence. The aim is accurate, well-supported representation, not a guaranteed citation.
Swipe sideways to compare the columns.
| Dimension | SEO checks | GEO checks |
|---|---|---|
| Goal | Help useful pages appear for relevant searches | Check whether AI answers represent the business accurately |
| Audience | People using search | People using AI-assisted search |
| What to measure | Relevant impressions, clicks and visits | Observed answer accuracy, sources and qualified response |
| Work | Content, site structure, crawlability and links | Clear facts, useful evidence and source consistency |
What Can Go Wrong
Two problems are worth checking:
Invisibility
A business may be missing from relevant answers when its services, expertise or supporting evidence are difficult to find.
Hallucination
AI systems can repeat old, conflicting or unsupported information about services, commercial details, people or locations.
The first step is to record what the systems currently say, identify the supporting sources and separate confirmed errors from assumptions.
Clear Facts and Connected Sources
Structured data can state important facts and relationships in a standard format. It is useful when it accurately reflects the visible page and is supported by credible sources.
Figure 1: Relationships in the public Paul Woodhouse structured data.
The diagram shows how the site connects a person, their work, services and reference pages. It is a declaration of those relationships, not proof on its own.
Are You Visible to AI?
Review what major AI systems currently say about your business, which sources they use and where the evidence is incomplete or conflicting.