What is GEO?
GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) covers everything you do to improve your chances of appearing in the answers written by generative engines: ChatGPT, Le Chat by Mistral, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude and Copilot.
The difference from traditional search optimisation fits in one sentence: a search engine ranks ten links, while an answer engine writes an answer and cites only two to five sources, sometimes none at all. There is no ‘page two’ any more: either you are in the answer, or you are not.
For a business, the stakes are very real. When a prospect asks ‘which accountant for a buy-to-let limited company in Manchester?’ or ‘best glamping in Cornwall with a pool’, the assistant replies with a handful of names. Anyone who isn't on that list loses the lead before the prospect ever visits their website.
GEO, AIO and SEO: what is the difference?
The three disciplines overlap: a technically sound, well-structured website serves all three. But the goal and the way you measure it are different.
| Where | Goal | Measure | |
|---|---|---|---|
| GEO | ChatGPT, Le Chat, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude | Be cited or recommended in the answer | Citation rate per question and per engine |
| AIO | Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode | Be among the sources of the generated summary | Presence in Gemini answers grounded in Google Search |
| SEO | Google, Bing | Rank well in the results | Rankings, clicks, impressions |
How an AI assistant chooses its sources
An assistant answers in two ways, often combined:
- From memory: what the model retained from its training. Your brand is in there if it was sufficiently present, and consistent, across the web when the model was trained.
- With a web search: the assistant queries an index, reads a few pages and writes its answer from them. This is where your website can be cited as a source, provided the assistant's crawlers are able to read it.
- your-site.com
- competitor-a.com
- 12 other pages read, not cited
In the second case, the assistant favours pages that answer the question directly, that state clearly who you are and where you operate, and whose facts (prices, opening hours, figures, reviews) are verifiable and consistent with the other sources that mention you.
The levers of GEO
Here is what we check on every page, from the most blocking issue to the finest detail:
- AI crawler access. A
robots.txtthat blocksGPTBot,OAI-SearchBot,ClaudeBotorPerplexityBotmakes you invisible to those engines. It is the most common mistake, often inherited from a security plugin. - A clearly defined entity. Name, line of business, area served and contact details, stated plainly on the page and in JSON-LD structured data (
Organization,LocalBusiness,Product…). - A direct answer up front. The first two or three sentences should answer the visitor's question, with no marketing preamble.
- A question-and-answer structure. Explicit headings, a genuine FAQ, lists and tables: blocks that are easy to extract and quote.
- Verifiable facts. Figures, dates, prices, certifications, reviews: the things that let an AI state something about you without taking a risk.
- Consistency across sources. The same information on your website, your Google Business Profile, directories and press coverage. Contradictions make models hesitate.
- An
llms.txtfile that summarises your site for language models: not yet a standard, but simple and risk-free.
Measuring GEO without fooling yourself
AI answers vary from one query to the next, and from one day to the next. A single screenshot proves nothing. What counts is the trend across a fixed set of questions, asked regularly to several engines.
That is exactly what GEO Invader's citation tracking does: for each tracked question and each engine, we record whether your brand is cited, in what position, which sources the AI used and who is cited instead of you.
How we work
- 01
Technical scan, free
We load the page and check access for the 8 main AI crawlers, llms.txt, JSON-LD, headings, meta tags, alt text, FAQ and sitemap. Facts, not estimates.
Free scan · no sign-up
- 02
GEO audit on 32 criteria
A score out of 100 split across 4 pillars (access, entity, direct answer, evidence), and deterministic: an unchanged page keeps the same score. Priority no. 1 is the fix that earns the most points.
Full GEO audit · 1 credit
- 03
Weekly citation tracking
Your prospects' questions asked to Le Chat, ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini. Visibility, position, share of voice against your competitors, sources cited.
AI visibility · included in all plans
- 04
Action plan and content
The missing JSON-LD ready to paste, and a ready-to-publish page for every question where you're absent: direct answer, article, FAQ and structured data.
JSON-LD architect · Content to publish · 1 credit