What GEO optimization is and how it differs from SEO

Where the term GEO came from

Researchers (P. Aggarwal and co-authors, 2023) proposed the term Generative Engine Optimization in “GEO: Generative Engine Optimization” (arXiv:2311.09735). They examine generative search engines that compose their own answer from several sources rather than simply display a list of links. GEO aims to make website content convenient to use and cite in such an answer.

How GEO differs from SEO

SEO is assessed through rankings, impressions and clicks in search results. In GEO, the focus is different: whether a page becomes one of the sources supporting an AI answer and whether the website is mentioned in that answer. Many AI assistants use search indexes and their own crawlers, so GEO does not replace SEO but builds on it: a page that a search engine has not indexed generally cannot become an answer source.

How AI assistants find pages

Different services have different crawlers and rules. OpenAI describes OAI-SearchBot for ChatGPT search and a separate GPTBot. Perplexity publishes information about PerplexityBot. Google states that ordinary Google Search requirements apply to a page appearing in AI Overviews and AI Mode: the page must be indexed and eligible to appear with a snippet. It is therefore important not to block the required crawlers in robots.txt and to monitor indexing in Google and Bing.

What preparation includes and what it does not promise

The page returns 200, its main text is present directly in HTML without mandatory JavaScript, there is no indexing restriction, a canonical address is specified, and the page appears in the sitemap. Schema.org structured data agrees with the visible text. The question is answered at the start of the page, and facts are verifiable and supported by sources. New and changed addresses can be reported through the IndexNow protocol.

No service can directly “add” a website to AI answers. An IndexNow notification or sitemap submission is a search engine signal, not indexing confirmation. Indexing does not mean citation, and citation does not guarantee visits. Verify results step by step: the page is published, submitted, read by a crawler, indexed, cited and receiving visits — with separate evidence for every step.

An example of a page that can be cited

A page that is useful to cite answers one question near the top and leaves a checkable trail. The AURA GEO comparison with Profound, Otterly and Peec does that: it places side by side only wording that was on those services' public pages and on the AURA GEO pricing page on 24 October 2026. If another page did not name a price or a feature, the comparison does not invent it. It is not a ranking and it does not promise that one of the services will appear in an AI answer.

That kind of text can be cited because it has a check date, a source address and a boundary: the observation is about the pages that were read, not about the whole product. A page that only says “we are the best”, with no question, source or date, gives an assistant nothing to lean on. We have not measured how much more often the first kind of page is cited. We are describing the trail the text itself leaves.

On your own site the same pattern is simple. The heading repeats the customer's question. The first paragraph gives a direct answer. Conditions, an example and links follow. The canonical points at that same address. The page returns HTTP 200, the main text is in the HTML, and the sitemap date is the real change date rather than today's date added “for freshness”.

An example of a review that is already published

The youastra.ru review published on this site shows what a specific check looks like, rather than a template that says “this site is ready for AI”. On 19 October 2026 a sample of 10 HTML pages, robots.txt and the sitemap was read. Responses in that sample were HTTP 200. The sitemap contained 423 unique addresses. That is the size of the public map, not a count of pages in the Google or Bing index or in AI answers. All 423 addresses were not crawled.

The privacy policy page showed an edition dated 11 October 2026, while the sitemap reported lastmod 7 September 2026 for the same URL. That is a reason to check how the map is updated. It is not proof of a penalty or of missing citations. All 27 JSON-LD blocks in the sample parsed as JSON. That is a syntax check, not confirmation of Google rich results.

The neighbouring Pupupul and Appto reviews use the same method — public HTML, robots.txt, sitemaps, screenshots and a fix plan — but the facts differ: different addresses, titles and mismatches. A shared method does not make the texts copies. We do not add scores that were not part of the check, and we do not write that ChatGPT already recommends any of these sites.

What GEO should not do

GEO is easy to confuse with a bag of workarounds. Buying links, reviews written in someone else's name, dozens of near-identical pages and automatically refreshing lastmod across the whole site do not add a checkable answer. They make it harder for a person and a crawler to tell a fresh page from noise. Google's documentation on AI search features says that AI Overviews and AI Mode follow the usual Google Search requirements: the page has to be indexed and eligible for a snippet. That documentation does not describe a switch labelled “add this site to the AI answer”.

An llms.txt file, a Sitemap line and an IndexNow ping are different signals. IndexNow's documentation defines the protocol as a notice that an address changed. An HTTP 200 from IndexNow means the notice was accepted. It does not mean the page was indexed and it does not mean an assistant cited it. AURA GEO stores the stages separately: publication, submission, crawler visit, indexing, citation, referral. If the evidence is missing, the status stays unknown. We do not invent volumes of questions people ask ChatGPT or Gemini. We do not have that measurement.

Does GEO replace SEO?

No. SEO describes how a page is found in ordinary results: crawling, indexing, a clear title, a snippet. GEO describes the next step, when an assistant composes an answer from several sources. A page a search engine cannot read and index is usually not available to cite. A blocked robots.txt, noindex and HTML that stays empty until JavaScript runs hurt both jobs at once.

The difference shows up in the report, not in swapping one term for another. For SEO, look at index coverage and queries in the search engine's own account. For GEO, save a specific assistant answer: the question, date, service, mode and links. A name mention, a link to the domain and advice to choose the service are three different outcomes. One saved answer does not describe every possible question.

Is an llms.txt file enough?

No. llms.txt can list public pages for an agent that reads the file. It does not replace HTML, a sitemap or indexing, and it is not a standard that obliges ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity or Claude to cite a site. On aurageo.io, llms.txt points at public pages and published answers. That is navigation for whoever opened the file, not evidence of a citation.

If a page matters for an answer, its text should live at the canonical address. Copying that text only into llms.txt and hiding the HTML is a poor bet: a search crawler indexes the page, not a side file.

Should every AI crawler be blocked?

Not all of them, and not with one rule. OpenAI documents different crawlers: OAI-SearchBot is tied to search in ChatGPT, and GPTBot is described separately. Perplexity documents its own crawlers. Google separates ordinary search from controls that concern model training. A robots.txt disallow stops the crawl for bots that read the rule. It does not delete a copy that was already stored, and it is not a substitute for a legal requirement about training data.

A practical order for a public article is this. The search crawlers you want are not blocked. A separate decision about training crawlers is written down if the owner made one. Fetching the page yourself with someone else's User-Agent does not prove that the official crawler visited: it has a different IP and different network rules. A server log and a check of the crawler's address are a different kind of evidence, and they should not be mixed with your own HTML download.

Can a place in the answer be bought?

There is no method AURA GEO sells as a purchased place in an answer. The prices on the pricing page are one monthly price: Try €0.99 and one site, Starter €29 and two sites, Pro €79 and three sites, Agency €299 and five sites, Managed GEO €2,000+ and ten sites. That is a fee for the workspace, not for a position. Checkout had not launched when this page was updated: choosing a plan is stored as a preview and does not by itself charge anything.

We do not sell paid “reviews”, hidden mentions or a pack of identical guest pages. An external publication happens only where the project owner allowed the destination and the text. Inclusion in a particular answer depends on the service, question, region, time and available sources. A plan cannot guarantee it.

Where AURA GEO helps

AURA GEO does not insert a website into a model. The product helps an owner and their agent walk through steps that can be checked. The agent connects to https://aurageo.io/mcp, reads the task queue and runs only the permissions it was given. Publishing on a verified domain is separate from reading the project. After publication, the live HTML can be checked and changed addresses can be submitted through IndexNow. A saved assistant answer is stored with its sources. The tracker on pages counts observed loads by referrer. It does not count unique people and it does not measure “how popular a question is”.

The useful next pages are the website-preparation guide, the comparison with other services and the MCP documentation. Each address answers its own question. Repeating their text here is unnecessary: a citation should point at the source, not at a retelling.

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