- GEOAI assistants name your business
- AEOThe answer on your page gets quoted
- SEOSearch engines find and read your page
In plain words
Someone asks ChatGPT: "Which jeweller in Pali has hallmarked gold and fair making charges?" Someone else asks: "Best family dentist in Columbus that takes Delta Dental?" Each time it answers with two or three names. Those names come from pages it could read and from what directories, reviews and other sites say.
If your site blocks its crawler, or your address is different on every listing, you aren't in the running, however good your shop is.
The three things GEO rests on
1. Access: can AI read your site?
Your robots.txt lets in the search crawlers AI assistants use, such as OAI-SearchBot for ChatGPT search, Claude-SearchBot and PerplexityBot, as well as Googlebot.
2. Identity: does AI know who you are?
The same name, address and phone on your site, your Google Business Profile and every listing. Business details in your page code, with links to your official profiles. A real About page with a real person.
3. Reputation: do others talk about you?
Mentions on other sites matter more than you might expect. In Ahrefs' study of 75,000 brands, branded web mentions had the strongest link to appearing in Google's AI Overviews (correlation 0.664), well ahead of backlinks (0.218). That's a correlation, not proof, but it points the same way as everything else.
Google also tells site owners not to chase inauthentic mentions. The mentions worth having are the ones a real customer or journalist would find.
From our own work
What a real audit found
Real example: the home page of milapinternational.in, audited with SEARCH ONE on 9 October 2026, shown with the owner's agreement. AI access and trust (GEO): 91 out of 100.
The strong part: no AI crawler was blocked, the page had business details in its code, and an llms.txt file responded.
The gaps were about identity. The home page showed no phone, email or address. It linked to four social profiles, but none of them were listed in its business data, so engines can't be sure those accounts belong to the same business. And no person was named behind the content.
None of this needs new technology. It's the same name, address and phone, shown everywhere, and one sentence about who runs the business.
See the full sample reportWhere to start this week
- Check that AI search crawlers can read your site. Free AI crawler checker
- Use one name, address and phone everywhere: your site, Google profile, directories and social pages. Check your Google profile
- Add business details to your page code, with links to your official profiles. Free schema checker
- Earn real mentions: trade directories, local news, associations, suppliers and partners. Never buy fake ones.
- Once a month, ask the assistants the questions your customers ask, and note who gets named.
Free checks for this
- AI crawler checkerIs ChatGPT, Claude or Perplexity blocked?Open
- Schema markup checkerYour business details, checked against the page.Open
- llms.txt checkerOptional, and we're honest about how much it does.Open
SEO, AEO and GEO side by side
| Question | SEO | AEO | GEO |
|---|---|---|---|
| Goal | Be found and ranked | Be quoted as the answer | Be named as a recommendation |
| Where it shows | Google and Bing results, Maps, AI Overviews | AI Overviews, AI Mode, answers in chat and voice | ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude and Copilot answers |
| What it rests on | A page search engines can open, read and trust | Real questions answered plainly, near the top | Crawler access, a clear identity, mentions on other sites |
| Free check | Schema checker and page audit | FAQ builder and page audit | AI crawler checker |
More detail in SEO vs AEO vs GEO, see the glossary for any term, or read the SEO and AEO guides.
Guides on GEO
- How to get your business recommended by ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity
- Entity SEO: how to make AI certain who you are
- AI and local search: Ask Maps, Gemini and ChatGPT
- GEO in 2027: how AI picks brands
Questions
How is GEO different from SEO?
SEO decides whether your pages can be found. GEO decides whether an assistant trusts your business enough to recommend it. GEO depends on SEO, then adds identity and reputation across the web.
Where does the term GEO come from?
From a 2023 research paper, "GEO: Generative Engine Optimization". Its authors found that changes to content could raise its visibility in AI answers by up to 40% in their tests.
Can I pay to appear in ChatGPT's answers?
Not in the recommendations themselves. OpenAI's documentation describes ads on ChatGPT, which are separate from the answers. Being named in an answer has to be earned.
Does llms.txt help GEO?
Not much. Google says its Search ignores llms.txt, and no major AI company has said its answers depend on it. Crawler access and a clear identity matter far more.
How do I check whether AI names my business?
Ask the assistants your customers' real questions in a private window and note who is named. Do it monthly, because answers change. SEARCH ONE paid plans can check your questions every week.
See where your page stands
SEARCH ONE checks one page for SEO, AEO and GEO and writes out each fix. Your first 5 page audits are free.
Run a free audit