What Is Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)?

What is generative engine optimization (GEO)?

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is the practice of building the off-site mention and citation profile that gets your brand named inside generative AI responses from ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity and Copilot. GEO is to AI search what link building is to Google — except mentions count even without a link.

What GEO Work Actually Looks Like

Digital PR placements on high-authority sites, podcast appearances, expert-quote contributions, industry directory listings, consistent NAP citations, review acquisition, Wikipedia/Wikidata entity work, and ongoing brand monitoring. The goal is to make your brand a frequent, positive, well-described entity in the corpus LLMs train on and retrieve from.

How GEO Differs From AEO

AEO is on-page work — formatting your own content. GEO is off-page work — getting the rest of the web to mention you. Most real programs run them together. Our AEO vs GEO vs LLM SEO post breaks down the overlap.

Where to Start

Start with a brand-mention audit: what shows up when you Google your brand name, and what do ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity say when asked about you? That gap is your GEO roadmap. See our reputation management NYC and AI SEO agency NYC pages for how we run it.