What Is Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)? We Analyzed 6 Reddit Threads

Generative engine optimization (GEO) is the practice of making your pages easy for AI assistants to find, understand and cite. When someone asks ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude or Google's AI Mode a question, the assistant searches the web, reads a handful of pages and writes an answer with links to its sources. GEO is about being one of those sources.

The term comes from a 2023 research paper, GEO: Generative Engine Optimization (Aggarwal et al., KDD 2024). The authors tested how small edits to a page change its visibility in AI-generated answers. Adding sources, quotations and statistics raised visibility by up to 40% on their benchmark.

You don't need to read the paper to do GEO well. Most of it is ordinary good SEO, with extra attention to two questions: can an AI system read this page, and does it contain something an AI would want to quote?

How an AI answer picks its sources

Each AI search product works a little differently, but the steps are broadly the same:

1. The question is rewritten into searches. An assistant rarely searches for the exact prompt; it splits it into several shorter queries, which is often called query fan-out.
2. Search finds candidate pages. ChatGPT search relies on its own crawler (OAI-SearchBot) and partners, Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode use Google's index, Copilot uses Bing, and Perplexity runs its own index.
3. The system reads the best candidates. It fetches the pages, usually as raw HTML, and pulls out the passages that answer the question.
4. The model writes an answer and cites the passages it used. Pages that offered a clear, self-contained and trustworthy passage get the link.

So you still have to rank, because a page that never appears in those searches can't be cited. But ranking alone isn't enough either. Among the pages it found, the model picks the ones whose passages answer the question most directly and credibly.

GEO vs SEO

GEO doesn't replace SEO. It builds on it: the technical basics and the authority that help a page rank also make it a candidate for AI answers. For a wider comparison that includes answer engine optimization, see GEO vs SEO vs AEO.

Is GEO just SEO? We analyzed 6 Reddit threads

We read six Reddit threads where people asked whether GEO is something new or SEO under a new name. They ran from June 2025 to September 2026, in r/bigseo, r/DigitalMarketing, r/GenerativeSEOstrategy, r/aeo, r/startups and r/ChatGPTPromptGenius, and held 70 visible comments from 51 people. Of the 29 who answered the question:

• The sharpest answer was also the most upvoted one in r/bigseo: "There isn't a single tactic that 'GEO' encourages that isn't already a thing in SEO."
• The majority accepted that the base is the same and pointed at the outcome instead: "You can sit at number one on Google and still never get mentioned by ChatGPT or Perplexity" (r/GenerativeSEOstrategy).
• When people said what to do, two things came up most: mentions on other sites, such as reviews, PR, comparisons and forums (8 people), and answers that come first and are easy to quote (7 people). A reply in r/aeo described the page that wins as one with "a direct answer in the first 2 lines, then a dated table, then the caveats lower down so the model can quote it fast."
• The same thread had the most useful warning. For official questions, such as how to get a work visa for Canada, "the assistant cites the government page, the embassy page and maybe an official processing-time page. A private site does not get into that answer, whatever you do to it." The advice that followed: aim for the questions official sources don't answer, and check what ChatGPT cites for them before writing.
• Vendors were everywhere. We left out nine replies that promoted a GEO tool or agency, most of them in r/aeo and r/DigitalMarketing.
• Even the name isn't settled: one reply in r/bigseo explained GEO as "Google Entity Optimization".

How we counted

We found the threads through Google (site:reddit.com searches on the topic) and saved them on October 10, 2026, with every visible comment. We counted people, not comments: each person once per thread, by the position they took. We didn't count the thread's author, replies that only asked a question or made a joke, or nine replies that promoted a product or service. An AI model sorted the replies into positions, and we checked each label against the reply itself. Removed and deleted comments aren't included. People who answer on Reddit aren't a random sample of site owners, so read the shares as the mood among practitioners, not as a survey.

The threads:

• Is GEO much more effective than SEO?, r/bigseo, August 2025
• Is GEO just rebranding good content marketing?, r/GenerativeSEOstrategy, March 2026
• Is GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) actually the "New SEO," or just a buzzword?, r/DigitalMarketing, March 2026
• Need help! To rank on ChatGPT., r/aeo, September 2026
• Generative Engine Optimization (GEO): Legit strategy or short-lived hack? - i will not promote, r/startups, June 2025
• I prompted ChatGPT until it told me how to do SEO for its ranking algorithm..., r/ChatGPTPromptGenius, October 2025

Our analysis: what the documentation and data say

We ran these checks through DataForSEO on October 11, 2026 (US, English); one run per question unless stated, so treat them as examples, not a study.

What we recommend: treat GEO as SEO plus three checks. AI crawlers can read your pages, each important page has a passage worth quoting, and other sites mention you. Aim for the questions where you can be the best source, not the ones an official site already answers.

The four layers of GEO

1. Access: can AI systems read the page?

Many sites get this layer wrong without realizing it.

AI companies use separate crawlers for training and for search. Blocking GPTBot keeps your content out of OpenAI's training data, while blocking OAI-SearchBot keeps you out of ChatGPT search answers. Plenty of sites block both by accident, through a blanket rule or a CDN setting. Our guide to AI crawlers and robots.txt lists the user agents and what each one does.

Most AI crawlers read the HTML your server returns and don't run JavaScript. If your content only appears after scripts run, they see an empty page.

nosnippet, max-snippet and data-nosnippet limit what Google can quote, and that includes AI Overviews and AI Mode.

Slow responses, soft 404s and redirect chains hurt you with every crawler, not only Google's.

2. Understanding: is the answer easy to extract?

Language models lift passages out of pages, so write passages that make sense on their own.

• Start with a direct answer: one or two sentences that answer the question in the heading, before any nuance.
• Word headings the way people ask the question, and answer each one in the first paragraph under it.
• Use lists, steps and tables for comparisons, specifications and processes.
• Add structured data (Article, Product, FAQPage, Organization) so the facts on the page can't be misread.
• Keep to one topic per page. A page that answers ten loosely related questions usually loses to ten pages that each answer one question well.

3. Trust: is the page worth citing?

AI answers prefer pages that look like reliable evidence. Name the author and show why they know the subject. Show when the page was published and last updated, and keep it current. Link to your sources; in the GEO paper, adding citations and quotations was among the most effective changes. Give specific numbers, such as your own data, benchmarks or prices, instead of vague claims.

4. Presence: does the web talk about you?

Assistants form their picture of a brand from many pages besides yours. Reviews, comparisons, forum threads, directories and press coverage all influence which brands an answer names. For GEO this plays the role link building plays in SEO: try to get mentioned on the pages AI answers already cite for your topic.

How to measure GEO

Google's AI features now have a report in Search Console, but ChatGPT and Perplexity offer nothing similar, so most of the measuring happens from the outside:

1. Write down 20 to 50 prompts your customers would ask, such as "best X for Y", "how to do Z" or "X vs Y".
2. Run them in ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google's AI Mode, and note whether your brand is mentioned, whether your site is cited, and which sites are cited instead.
3. For Google, open the Generative AI performance report in Search Console to see which of your pages appear in AI Overviews and AI Mode.
4. Repeat every month. AI answers vary between runs, so look at how often you appear over time rather than at one response.

SearchLane automates steps 2 and 4. Its AI visibility check runs your prompts in ChatGPT and Google's AI answers and shows mentions, cited pages and the competitors cited instead.

How to optimize for generative AI: a GEO checklist

• robots.txt allows OAI-SearchBot, PerplexityBot, Claude-SearchBot and Googlebot
• Main content is in the HTML without JavaScript
• No accidental nosnippet or noindex
• Each important page opens with a direct answer to its main question
• Headings are phrased the way people ask
• Article, Organization and FAQPage schema where they fit
• Author and dates on every article
• Sources linked, numbers specific
• A short list of prompts you check every month

The free website audit checks the first five items on up to 25 pages at once.

FAQ

Does GEO replace SEO?

No. AI search products retrieve pages from a search index before writing an answer, so a page that doesn't rank is rarely cited. GEO adds a layer on top of SEO.

How long does GEO take to work?

Access fixes, such as unblocking AI search crawlers, can show results within days or weeks, once the pages are crawled again. Content work and brand mentions take months, as in SEO.

Do I need an llms.txt file for GEO?

No, it's optional. llms.txt is a proposed file that gives AI tools a map of your site. Google says Search doesn't use it, and the main AI search engines haven't said they read it. It takes little time to add, but robots.txt access and clear content matter far more. Our article on llms.txt explains when it helps.

Which generative engine optimization tool is the best?

No single tool does it all, because GEO tools do two different jobs. AI visibility trackers run your prompts in ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google's AI answers and record mentions and citations. Site checkers test AI crawler access, rendering and structure. Choose a tracker that shows the actual answers and the pages they cite for the assistants your customers use.

What is the difference between GEO and AEO?

AEO (answer engine optimization) is an older term for optimizing content to be the direct answer in featured snippets, voice assistants and People Also Ask. GEO is about generative AI answers that combine several sources. In practice the tactics overlap.

What does Reddit think about GEO?

Most practitioners see it as SEO with a new layer. In six Reddit threads we analyzed, 18 of the 29 people who answered said GEO keeps the SEO base but adds citations, brand mentions and new ways to measure. Nine said it's SEO under a new name or hype, and two called it a separate discipline.