Generative Engine Optimization (GEO): what it is, and how to get cited by AI

What is generative engine optimization (GEO)?

Generative engine optimization covers everything that helps an AI understand your content, trust it and reuse it in an answer. Where classic SEO aims for a spot in a list of links, GEO aims for a spot in the answer itself.

Imagine a customer asking: “Which reliable plumber is there near Montrouge?” They used to get ten links. Today, they often get a short text that cites two or three businesses. GEO is all the work that makes you “citable” in that exact spot.

Where does the word GEO come from?

The term comes from a Princeton study presented in 2024. Its authors tested thousands of queries on generative engines. Their finding: adding cited sources, quotations and statistics can increase a piece of content’s visibility by up to 40%.

The same work also shows the opposite. Keyword stuffing, an old recipe from the 2000s, does worse than doing nothing at all. AI prefers a clear, well-supported text to one that repeats the same phrase twenty times.

GEO, SEO, AEO: three names, one foundation

You will also read AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) or LLMO. Don’t be put off by the acronyms. Google itself puts these terms in the same family: to appear in its AI answers, you first need to follow SEO best practices. That is rather reassuring. The work done for Google also serves AI.

Why does GEO matter for a local business?

GEO matters because your future customers increasingly ask an AI their questions before choosing a business. And when the AI answers, it only cites a handful of names.

Your customers ask AI their questions

In France, 48% of the population already uses generative AI, up 15 points in one year. ChatGPT remains the main tool for almost two users out of three.

For shops and services, the shift is even clearer. According to BrightLocal, 45% of consumers now use an AI to find a local business, versus 6% a year earlier. It is no longer a geek curiosity. It is a new habit.

Being cited beats being ranked below

When an AI summary appears, people click less on classic links. A Pew Research study measured 8% of clicks on a result when an AI summary is present, versus 15% without one. Questions phrased as full sentences also trigger these summaries more often.

The conclusion is simple. If your business appears in the answer, you are seen. If it is only ranked below, you risk going unnoticed.

How do you do generative engine optimization for your business?

Doing generative engine optimization means first taking care of four things: your content, your website’s structure, your Google profile and your reviews. Here is how we approach them, without jargon.

Content drawn from your experience, not a summary of the web

Google says it plainly in its advice on helpful content: it favors pages written for people, with real expertise. A copied “top 10 tips” doesn’t set you apart from anyone.

Instead, share what only you know. The questions your customers ask you. The mistakes you often see. The way you work. That is the kind of content an AI wants to reuse, because it can’t find it anywhere else.

Clear pages, readable by Google and by AI

An AI doesn’t guess. It reads. Google’s page on AI features recalls a few basics that change everything: important content written as text, internal links so every page can be found, a good mobile experience, and structured data that matches the visible text.

Let AI crawlers read your website

If crawlers can’t get in, no one will cite you. OpenAI describes its own crawlers, including OAI-SearchBot for ChatGPT search, in its technical documentation. During our audits, we check that your robots.txt file doesn’t block them by mistake. It happens more often than you’d think, and it’s a bit like locking the shop on the first day of the sales.

The same information everywhere

Your name, address and phone number must be the same on your website, your profile and directories. This is called NAP consistency. It is one of the pillars of our local SEO work. An AI that finds three different addresses for the same business hesitates. And an AI that hesitates doesn’t cite.

A complete, up-to-date Google profile

For local searches, Google also draws on business details. Opening hours, services, service area, photos: every box you fill in helps AI answers talk about you correctly. A half-empty profile is a business card with half the phone number rubbed out.

Real, recent reviews

Reviews reassure your customers, and they also feed AI. Be careful: people check. According to the same BrightLocal survey, 88% of consumers check the reviews cited by an AI. Hence our rule: only genuine reviews, requested at the right moment. We detail this method on our Google reviews page.

Do llms.txt and OKF files really help?

The llms.txt file and OKF can help some AI assistants, but Google states that it doesn’t use them for its search engine. It is written in black and white in its guide: no special files are needed to appear in Google, AI included.

So why do we set them up? Because Google is not the only assistant on the market. These files summarize your business in a simple format, for the tools that choose to read them. We see them as a preparation bonus, never as the priority, and never as a guarantee. The priority remains content, structure and your profile.

How do you know whether AI cites you?

The simplest way is to look at the new “Generative AI” report in Search Console, then test the assistants yourself. Google opened this performance report to all websites at the end of August 2026. It shows how many times your pages appear in its AI answers.

For ChatGPT or Perplexity, nothing beats a practical test: ask the questions your customers ask, and see who gets cited. That is exactly what we do during the diagnostic. Then we track these appearances in the monthly report.

Can you guarantee being cited by ChatGPT?

No, no one can guarantee being cited by ChatGPT, Gemini or Google. AI decides on its own, and its rules change without warning. Be wary of anyone who promises otherwise.

What we can do is work on everything that depends on you: first-hand content, clear pages, consistent information, a complete profile and real reviews. Then we measure, adjust and start again. It is less spectacular than a promise, but much more solid.