What is GEO, and how is it different from SEO?

GEO is about whether the AI answer mentions your store

A shopper asks ChatGPT for a "quiet power station for running a CPAP while camping" (example). Instead of ten links, the assistant runs its own searches, reads a few pages, writes an answer and lists its sources. GEO is the work of making your store one of those sources.

Microsoft draws the line clearly in the Bing Webmaster Guidelines. SEO improves the technical quality, clarity and accessibility of a site so Bing can discover, understand and evaluate it. GEO "focuses on content eligibility for grounding and reference in AI responses." The same paragraph adds that SEO does not guarantee rankings or traffic, and GEO does not guarantee citations.

SEO competes for a position. GEO competes to be named in the answer.

Most of the work is the same, and Google still calls it SEO

Google addressed the AEO and GEO labels directly in its guide on generative AI search, last updated in July 2026. From Google's point of view, optimizing for generative AI search is optimizing for search, "and thus still SEO."

AI Overviews and AI Mode draw on the regular Google Search index. To be eligible as a supporting link, a page must be indexed and eligible to show with a snippet; Google says there are no additional technical requirements. Bing says Copilot runs on the same crawling, indexing and ranking foundation as Bing search.

What that means for a store owner:

• If Google has not indexed a page, AI Overviews cannot use it. Weak SEO basics block GEO too.
• You do not need a separate site or a new platform. Shopify, WooCommerce and custom builds all work.
• Google says its search does not need llms.txt or other AI text files, content chopped into tiny chunks, or copy rewritten just for AI. If someone sells you those as the way into AI answers, ask for their evidence.

Three things SEO usually does not cover

If your customers only used Google, GEO and SEO would be almost the same job. Many also use ChatGPT, Perplexity and Claude, which run their own crawlers with their own rules.

1. Let the AI search crawlers in

A crawler is the program that fetches pages for a search engine or an AI company. The companies below each keep the crawler that feeds their search answers apart from anything used for training. To show up in answers, you need to allow the first kind:

OpenAI is blunt about it: sites that opt out of OAI-SearchBot will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers. Blocking the training crawlers is a separate choice. OpenAI and Perplexity both state that each setting is independent, so you can allow search and refuse training.

Checking takes one line in a terminal. Swap in your own domain:

curl -s https://yourstore.com/robots.txt

If User-agent: OAI-SearchBot or User-agent: PerplexityBot is followed by Disallow: /, that crawler is blocked. Shopify's default file blocks none of them; the one on Shopify's own Dawn demo store names no AI crawler at all. A CDN or firewall in front of your store can still block them at the network level, which robots.txt will not show. Google's documentation says to confirm crawling is allowed in robots.txt and by any CDN or hosting setup. The full check is in Can AI crawlers reach your store?

2. Write answers that can be lifted as one passage

A results page hands the shopper ten links and lets them dig. An AI assistant writes the answer itself and takes a passage from your page to support it. Perplexity describes its search system as treating individual sections of a page as units in their own right. Bing's guidelines say a URL focused on one primary topic is more likely to be selected for grounding, and that essential information belongs near the top of the page.

This is not a separate writing style, and Google says you do not need to chop content up or rewrite it for AI. Answer first, put specs, prices and use cases in text, and say where your numbers come from. A product page made of images and slogans gives an assistant nothing to quote. More in How to write a page AI will quote.

3. What others say about you ends up in the answer

Google's guide notes that its AI features can show what is said about products across the web, including blogs, videos and forums. Public research points the same way: most sources AI answers cite are third-party sites, and brand sites are a small share. Honest reviews, Reddit threads and YouTube videos carry real weight. The whole selection process is in How AI assistants decide which stores to mention.

Google adds that chasing inauthentic mentions is less helpful than it looks. We do not run sock-puppet accounts or place undisclosed paid posts; the full list is on our white-hat page.

You measure it differently

SEO tracks where a keyword ranks and how many clicks it brings. GEO tracks whether an assistant names you when a shopper asks a real question, and which page it cites. A few platforms now share data with site owners:

• Google Search Console has a Generative AI performance report. Google says it rolled out to all sites on August 31, 2026 (Search Console Help). It shows how often your pages appeared in AI Overviews and AI Mode, and which pages.
• Bing Webmaster Tools has an AI Performance report: Copilot citations, cited URLs and the phrases the AI searched with.
• ChatGPT adds utm_source=chatgpt.com to links it sends to your site, so those visits can be filtered in Google Analytics.

Perplexity and Claude offer no site-owner dashboard, and answers change from one ask to the next. The reliable method is a fixed list of buyer questions, asked weekly, noting whether you were mentioned and which page was cited. Our contracts accept work only against the AIV score from geo-score, an open 0 to 100 rubric you can rerun yourself. Traffic and leads we track with you, outside acceptance.

How fast you see results depends on where you are stuck

• Access problems, such as blocked crawlers or content that only appears after JavaScript runs, take days to fix. You can rerun geo-score the same day. When each AI crawler comes back is up to that company.
• Specific buyer questions, with a budget, use case or compatibility need attached, usually take weeks: a good answer page typically gets indexed and starts appearing in AI answers within weeks. See why small stores can win long-tail questions.
• Category head terms like "best running shoes" take months, often more than six. Big brands and established review sites already cover them. We do not sell that outcome.

The step-by-step version is on our method page.

Common questions

Sources

1. Google Search Central: Optimizing your website for generative AI features on Google Search (page updated 2026-07-10), checked 2026-10-08
2. Google Search Central: AI features and your website, checked 2026-10-08
3. Google: Google's common crawlers (Google-Extended), checked 2026-10-08
4. Bing Webmaster Guidelines, checked 2026-10-08
5. OpenAI: Overview of OpenAI Crawlers, checked 2026-10-08
6. Perplexity Crawlers, checked 2026-10-08
7. Claude Help Center: Does Anthropic crawl data from the web, and how can site owners block the crawler?, checked 2026-10-08
8. Perplexity: Architecting and Evaluating an AI-First Search API, checked 2026-10-08
9. Shopify Help Center: Editing robots.txt.liquid and the robots.txt of Shopify's Dawn demo store, checked 2026-10-08
10. Search Console Help: Generative AI performance report (Search), checked 2026-10-08
11. Bing Webmaster Blog: Introducing AI Performance in Bing Webmaster Tools Public Preview (2026-02-10), checked 2026-10-08
12. OpenAI Help Center: Publishers and Developers FAQ, checked 2026-10-08