GEO vs SEO: what is the difference?

What is the difference between GEO and SEO?

SEO (search engine optimisation) aims to get your page high up in a search engine’s results, so people click on it. GEO (generative engine optimisation) aims to get your company into the answer of an AI service, described correctly, recommended or cited as a source. The difference lies less in the work than in the goal and the measurement.

	SEO	GEO
Goal	rank high in the list of results	be named and recommended in the AI’s answer
Where	Google, Bing and other search engines	ChatGPT, Gemini, Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode, Claude
What the customer sees	a list of links	a text with a few names and some sources
Metric	ranking, impressions, clicks	share of answers that name, recommend or cite you
Variation	one ranking per search, place and day	the same question does not get the same answer every time
Main levers	technology, content, links	the same basics, plus the sources the AI reads and clear answers to sub-questions
What counts as success	more visits from search	named more often, described correctly, recommended more often

The term GEO comes from a study by Pranjal Aggarwal and colleagues, published on arXiv in 2023 and presented at the KDD 2024 conference. What GEO covers in detail is explained in What is GEO?.

What does «GEO instead of SEO» mean?

The phrase usually describes an observation: some customers no longer ask Google first but ChatGPT, Gemini or Claude which company to choose. The answer names only a few firms, and whoever is missing is hardly seen for that question. In Google Search, too, many searches now show an AI Overview above the links.

As advice, «instead» is still wrong. AI services with web search read pages they can find and understand, the same pages that count for SEO. For AI Overviews and AI Mode, Google writes on Search Central that there are no additional requirements: a page must be indexed and eligible to be shown with a snippet. Dropping SEO therefore also loses ground in Google’s AI answers. The right reading: GEO comes on top.

Is SEO still worth it?

Yes, for two reasons. First, Google Search still brings visits to your website, including through the links in AI Overviews. Second, according to Google the same basics apply to its AI features as to normal search: a page that is not indexed cannot appear there as a link.

What changes is the weight. A good ranking alone is no longer enough when an answer above the links names three other companies. That is why it pays to measure what the AI answers say as well.

What do GEO and SEO have in common?

More than the labels suggest. This work helps both:

• A readable website: crawlable, indexed, fast, clearly structured. For GEO, the AI services’ crawlers must not be locked out either.
• The answer first: pages that answer a question in their first sentence are understood faster by people, search engines and AI services.
• Content for the sub-questions: AI services run several searches of their own on sub-topics of a question. Pages that answer exactly those sub-questions stand a chance of being read and cited.
• Mentions by others: directories, associations and trade media count for your standing in search and in AI alike. In a study of 98 German-speaking Swiss SMEs, local.ch, search.ch and comparis.ch were among the sources the AI answers cited most, according to Netzwoche (2026).
• Consistent details: the same name, address and offer on your website and everywhere else.

What Google explicitly does not ask for, not even for its AI features: an llms.txt, special markup or text rewritten for AI. More in What is an llms.txt?.

How do you measure GEO, and how SEO?

SEO is measured with rankings, impressions and clicks, for example in Google Search Console. GEO is measured with shares: in how many answers to typical customer questions does your company appear? Because the same question does not get the same answer every time, you need many questions on several days and a margin of error.

An example from our own measurement, the live case study «Grow in Public»: from 6 to 13 October 2026 we asked ChatGPT, Gemini, Google AI Overviews and Claude questions about GEO and AI visibility on 8 days, 50 different ones in all. Of 3,200 requests, 3,112 returned an answer; 11% of those named anewera, with a margin of error of 10 to 13%, and 2% recommended it (2 to 3%). There is no ranking in this: the figure says how often, not how high.

Since 31 August 2026, Search Console also shows how often links to your website appeared in AI Overviews and AI Mode. Whether the answer names your company and describes it correctly, it does not show. For that the answers themselves have to be read; how, is explained in What is AI visibility?.

Is GEO worth it for SMEs, or is my SEO agency enough?

That depends on whether your customers ask AI services for providers like you, and on what those services answer today. In a study of 98 German-speaking Swiss SMEs, 63% of the companies did not appear in a single AI answer, according to Netzwoche (2026). Whether that holds for your company only a measurement over several days can show.

Your SEO agency often covers the basics already. Ask it three things:

1. Do you measure how often ChatGPT, Gemini, Google AI Overviews and Claude name us, on several days and with a margin of error?
2. Do you know which sources these services read about our industry, and do you work on listings and mentions there?
3. Does your report tell apart whether an answer recommends us or merely lists us?

If the answers are no, the GEO part is missing. anewera takes it on as a GEO agency, on its own or together with your SEO agency. A first impression of what AI services say about your company today comes from the free AI check.