GEO vs SEO: differences and common ground

What is GEO, in one definition?

GEO, for Generative Engine Optimization, covers the actions that increase the likelihood that an AI answer engine cites your brand or your pages. The engines targeted write an answer instead of showing ten links: Google’s AI Overviews and AI Mode, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Copilot, Gemini or Claude.

The term comes from a research paper posted online on November 16, 2023 by six researchers. It was presented at the KDD 2024 conference (Aggarwal et al., “GEO: Generative Engine Optimization”). In France, it has won out over its equivalents.

Acronym	Stands for	Usage in September 2026
GEO	Generative Engine Optimization	Dominant term in France
AEO	Answer Engine Optimization	Used as a synonym, focused on answer engines
LLMO	Large Language Model Optimization	Used as a synonym, focused on language models
SGE	Search Generative Experience	Former name of Google’s test, replaced by AI Overviews and AI Mode

GEO, AEO and LLMO refer to the same work. The rest of this page compares GEO with SEO. Definitions of related terms are gathered in the SEO and GEO glossary.

GEO vs SEO: what are the concrete differences?

The difference lies in the format of the result. A classic results page offers ranked links: the user chooses and clicks. An answer engine reads several sources, writes a summary and cites, or does not cite, some of them. This change of format shifts the goal, the metrics and some of the levers.

Dimension	SEO	GEO
Goal	A position and a click	A mention of the brand or a citation of a page in the answer
Metrics	Impressions, clicks, position, click-through rate	Mention rate, citation rate, share of voice against competitors
Query format	Short keywords	Long, conversational questions, often followed by follow-ups
Sources used	The ranked page	Several sources at once: website, comparison sites, reviews, forums, press
Stability	Ranking measurable day after day	Answer varies from one session to another
Main levers	Technical, content, links	SEO foundation, passages that are easy to cite, brand awareness

Engines do not all cite in the same way. Semrush analyzed 126 million prompts between January and April 2026: ChatGPT cites about 15 sources per answer, Gemini about 3 (Semrush, June 26, 2026). So a good Google ranking does not guarantee a presence in every AI answer. Each engine is presented on our page about AI search engines.

What does not change between SEO and GEO?

The foundation stays the same. For its AI Overviews and AI Mode, Google explains that it relies on its usual ranking and quality systems. The model retrieves pages from the search index, then writes its answer from them. To be eligible, a page must be indexed and able to show with a snippet (Google Search Central, guide to optimizing for generative AI, updated on July 10, 2026).

Google sums it up in one sentence: from its point of view, optimizing for generative search is still SEO. No additional requirements or special optimization are needed to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode (Google, “AI features and your website”, updated on December 10, 2025).

• Crawling and indexing: a page that is blocked or missing from the index cannot serve as a source.
• One page, one intent: a page that clearly answers a question is easier to pick up.
• Quality and trust: identified author, sources, dates, real experience. These are the E-E-A-T criteria of SEO.
• Readable structure: explicit headings, short paragraphs, tables and lists.

Everything covered in our SEO guide therefore also serves GEO. The reverse is not true: GEO work laid on top of a poorly indexed site produces nothing.

Cited as a brand or cited as a source: what is the difference?

GEO pursues two goals that must be measured separately. Being cited as a source means seeing a URL from your site appear as a reference under the answer. Being cited as a brand means being named in the text, with or without a link.

Goal	What triggers it	Main lever
Cited as a source	The engine runs a web search and selects your page	Crawler access, quality and clarity of the pages
Cited as a brand	The model knows the brand or finds it on third-party sites	Brand awareness, mentions in the press, reviews, forums

The two do not overlap. On Gemini, the overlap between brands mentioned and domains cited can fall to 30% (Semrush, same study). A brand can therefore be named without its site being cited, and the other way around. Classic SEO mainly worked on the first goal. GEO forces you to handle the second as well, which is largely played out outside the site. That is the subject of our GEO optimization method.

Does GEO make you lose SEO traffic?

GEO does not make you lose traffic. It is AI summaries that reduce clicks on the queries where they appear. In France, AI Overviews and AI Mode have been active since July 22, 2026 (Blog du Modérateur, July 22, 2026). Any analysis of organic traffic in 2026 must separate the before and after of this date.

How to read it: being cited limits the loss of clicks, without making up for it. Seer points out that this is a correlation, and that the 0.94% figure is pulled down by a single account; without it, it is close to 1.61%. GEO then becomes a way to defend your visibility on the affected queries.

To track the effect, Search Console now shows the impressions earned in Google’s AI features, without the clicks (Google Search Central Blog, June 2026). The full method is described on our page about measuring AI visibility.

Do you have to choose between SEO and GEO?

No. Setting GEO against SEO makes no operational sense: GEO is managed as an extension of SEO, on a single roadmap. The order of work matters more than the choice between the two.

1. Technical foundation: crawling, indexing, access for AI engine crawlers, fast and readable pages.
2. Measured starting point: a fixed panel of questions, recorded across several engines before any action.
3. High-performing SEO pages: these are the most likely candidates for citation. Direct answer at the top, sections that make sense on their own, sourced figures.
4. Brand outside the site: consistent information everywhere, mentions in the specialist press, customer reviews, comparison sites.
5. Monthly tracking: AI impressions, citations, share of voice, with the same settings for each measurement.

The overall framework, from how the engines work to measurement, is presented in our GEO guide.