Generative Engine Optimization (GEO): how to get your business recommended by ChatGPT and AI search

What is generative engine optimization (GEO)?

GEO stands for generative engine optimization. It means preparing your content so that AI assistants such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, Microsoft Copilot or Google’s AI Overviews can find it, understand it and cite it as a source. It is often called AI SEO as well. The term GEO was introduced by a scientific study from 2023 that was published in 2024 at the computer science conference KDD.

The difference from traditional search: a search engine shows a list of links. An AI assistant writes a finished answer and links to a few sources. Whoever is named there appears directly in the answer your customer reads.

How many people search with AI

• Germany: 50 percent of internet users aged 16 and over use AI chats instead of traditional search engines at least sometimes. Among 16- to 29-year-olds, it is two-thirds. That is the result of a Bitkom survey from autumn 2025.
• Sources matter: According to the ARD/ZDF Media Study 2026, 59 percent of people aged 14 and over in Germany use AI tools at least occasionally. A majority of 81 percent consider source citations important or very important when using AI.
• ChatGPT: In March 2026, OpenAI reported more than 900 million weekly active users worldwide. Search usage, it said, had nearly tripled within a year.
• Google: According to Google, AI Overviews have over 2.5 billion users per month worldwide, and AI Mode has over one billion.

How AI assistants choose their sources

Every provider works a little differently. What they all have in common: they rely on a search index and on crawlers, which are programs that read websites automatically.

• Google (AI Overviews and AI Mode): A page must be indexed and eligible to appear in Google Search with a text snippet. Beyond that, according to Google, there are no additional requirements and no special optimizations. The AI features are based on the core ranking and quality systems of Google Search.
• ChatGPT: According to OpenAI, any public website can appear in ChatGPT search. The requirement is that the OAI-SearchBot crawler is allowed to read the page and that your hosting or CDN does not block it. Pages that block it do not appear in ChatGPT search answers. ChatGPT also works with other search providers to some extent. A specific placement is not guaranteed, OpenAI says.
• Perplexity: PerplexityBot finds and links websites for Perplexity’s search results. Perplexity recommends allowing it in your robots.txt so that your own site appears there. According to Perplexity, it is not used to train AI models.
• Microsoft Copilot: According to Microsoft, the search features of Bing and Copilot are based on the same foundation of crawling, indexing and ranking as traditional search.

This means SEO is the foundation of GEO. If your site is properly indexed on Google and Bing and you allow the AI providers’ search crawlers, you meet the most important requirement.

GEO and SEO: what is the difference?

SEO makes sure your page ranks high in search results and gets clicked. GEO makes sure AI assistants use your content in their answers and cite you as a source. The two work together: according to Google, the SEO basics remain relevant for AI Overviews and AI Mode.

The difference lies mainly in the format. According to Microsoft, AI assistants such as Copilot break content down into smaller sections and evaluate them individually. They can often reuse clear questions with direct answers word for word. Research also shows that well-sourced, easy-to-understand content performs better.

What the research shows

The GEO study tested nine methods for optimizing texts for AI answers. Its result: GEO can increase visibility in the answers of generative search engines by up to 40 percent.

• Worked best: citing sources, including quotations from credible sources and adding statistics.
• Also helpful: fluent, easy-to-understand writing, with a gain of 15 to 30 percent.
• Hardly any effect: keyword stuffing, meaning repeating search terms over and over. On Perplexity, it even performed about 10 percent worse than the unchanged text.

Especially interesting for smaller businesses: the pages that ranked lower in Google Search benefited the most. With source citations, the visibility of the page in fifth place rose by 115 percent, while the page in first place lost 30 percent on average. The authors explain this by pointing out that traditional search engines rely on factors such as the number of links to a site, which are hard for small businesses to achieve.

Important context: the study was conducted mostly under laboratory conditions. A recreated AI search system built on GPT-3.5 answered questions based on the top five Google results, and Perplexity was tested as well. The figures are relative improvements, not a guarantee. Microsoft also says that nothing guarantees selection in AI answers.

10 ways to improve your AI visibility

1. Allow the AI providers’ search crawlers. In your robots.txt, allow at least OAI-SearchBot (ChatGPT) and PerplexityBot. You can exclude the training of AI models separately, for example via GPTBot at OpenAI or Google-Extended at Google. According to Google, Google-Extended has no influence on inclusion in Google Search.
2. Check your firewall, CDN and hosting. Google and OpenAI explicitly point out that CDN and hosting must also let the crawlers through. Cloudflare, for example, has distinguished between AI crawlers for search, agents and training since July 2026. Each type can be allowed or blocked individually. Make sure that search gets through.
3. Be properly indexed on Google and Bing. Set up Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools and submit your sitemap. Bing also recommends IndexNow: the protocol reports new, changed and deleted pages to participating search engines as soon as something changes. That way, according to Bing, AI systems draw on the current version of a page.
4. Answer questions directly. Phrase your headings as the questions your customers ask, and give the answer right in the first sentence. According to Microsoft, lists, numbered steps and tables break complex content into clear, reusable sections.
5. Back up your claims. Link to sources, give the origin of your numbers and quote credible sources. In the GEO study, these were the most effective methods.
6. Unique content instead of quantity. Google writes that content people find unique, compelling and useful will probably influence your presence in AI search in the long run more than any other tip in Google’s guide. According to Google, collecting inauthentic mentions across the web is less helpful than it might seem.
7. Structured data that matches your text. According to Google, it is not required for Google’s AI search, and there is no special markup for it. Microsoft recommends it because it lets machines classify content reliably, for example as a product, review, FAQ or event. What matters, according to Google, is that it matches the visible text.
8. Keep your business information up to date. Google explicitly names an up-to-date business profile as part of the SEO basics. Bing recommends that local businesses have a listing in Bing Places so that address, business hours and contact details stay current and can appear in AI answers.
9. Take accessibility seriously. According to OpenAI, the agent in ChatGPT Atlas uses ARIA markup, meaning the same labels and roles that screen readers use, to understand the structure and controls of a page.
10. Show who is behind your content. In its guidelines for helpful content, Google recommends adding author information such as a byline where readers expect it, and sharing more about the person there. Google’s AI features are based on the same quality systems as Search.

How to measure and check your AI visibility

• Google Search Console: Since 31 August 2026, a dedicated report has been available to all websites. It shows how often links to your site were displayed in AI Overviews and AI Mode, broken down by page, country, device and day. These appearances are also included in the performance report under “Web”.
• Bing Webmaster Tools: The “AI Performance” report shows how your content appears in Microsoft Copilot, in Bing’s AI summaries and with selected partners.
• ChatGPT: You can recognize visitors from ChatGPT search in your web analytics by the parameter utm_source=chatgpt.com, which, according to OpenAI, ChatGPT automatically appends to links.
• Spot checks: Ask ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google the questions your customers would ask, and note whether and how your business is mentioned.

Common mistakes

• Blocking search crawlers by accident, in your robots.txt, in your firewall or at your CDN. Then the basic requirement for everything else is missing.
• Relying on an llms.txt as a shortcut. The file is a proposal by Jeremy Howard from 2024. According to Google, Google Search ignores such files. They do not hurt there, but they do not help either.
• Keyword stuffing. It did very little in the GEO study, and on Perplexity it even led to a worse result.
• Making claims instead of backing them up. Source citations, quotations and statistics had the strongest effect in the study. If you do not back anything up, you give away that advantage.

How much does GEO cost?

That depends on the initial state of your website. Sometimes technical fixes and revised text are enough, sometimes a new build is worth it. With us, prices start at €200. How the costs of a whole website add up is covered in our article How much does a website cost?. You can see how we build websites with SEO and GEO on our page about websites with SEO & GEO. In a free intro call, we will look at your site together.