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What is GEO (generative engine optimisation)?

By Jerry Lim · Updated · 6 min read

In short

GEO (generative engine optimisation) is the work of getting your business named and cited when ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity or Google's AI writes an answer. These tools search the web first, then write from what they find. So you need pages they can reach, facts they can quote, and real mentions on other sites.

GEO is the work of making your business one of the names an AI tool gives when it writes an answer. The term comes from a 2023 paper by researchers from Princeton University and IIT Delhi, which found that simple page edits could lift a source's visibility in AI answers by up to 40%.

What does GEO actually mean?

GEO means optimising for "generative engines": AI tools that search the web, read a handful of pages and write one answer. ChatGPT search, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot and Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode all work this way.

Your customer doesn't scroll ten links. They read one answer that names a few businesses and links a few sources. GEO is being one of them. For the side-by-side with SEO and AEO, read AEO vs GEO vs SEO.

Where did the term GEO come from?

It comes from the paper "GEO: Generative Engine Optimization", posted to arXiv on 16 November 2023 and accepted at the KDD 2024 conference. The authors are Pranjal Aggarwal (IIT Delhi), Vishvak Murahari, Karthik Narasimhan and Ameet Deshpande (Princeton University), and Tanmay Rajpurohit and Ashwin Kalyan, listed as independent researchers.

They built GEO-bench, 10,000 queries across 25 topic areas, and tested nine ways of rewriting a page to see which made an AI engine use it more. What they found:

  • Quotations, statistics and cited sources worked best. They lifted visibility by 30 to 40% on the paper's word-count measure.
  • Keyword stuffing did little or nothing. In the Perplexity test it did 10% worse than the untouched page.
  • Lower-ranked sites gained the most. Citing sources raised visibility by 115.1% for sites ranked fifth in search results, while the top-ranked site lost 30.3% on average.

Read it with care. The main test engine was the researchers' own, built on GPT-3.5 reading the top 5 Google results, and AI tools have changed since. Take the direction (facts, numbers and sources beat keywords), not the percentages.

How do ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google's AI choose sources?

They all run a web search first and write from what comes back, so if their search can't reach your page, nothing else matters.

Engine Where it searches Allow in robots.txt
Google AI Overviews and AI Mode Google's Search index Googlebot
Gemini app Google's Search index Googlebot and Google-Extended
ChatGPT search The web, with providers such as Bing OAI-SearchBot
Perplexity The web, in real time PerplexityBot

Google AI Overviews and AI Mode. Google's AI optimization guide, updated July 2026, says these features use its core ranking systems to retrieve pages from the Search index, then write from them. A page must be indexed and eligible to show a snippet. They also use "query fan-out": several related searches run at once. So one customer question can pull in pages that rank for related side questions.

Gemini. Google's crawler documentation, updated October 2026, says Gemini Apps ground answers by "providing content from the Google Search index to the model at prompt time". The Google-Extended token controls that grounding as well as training. Block Google-Extended to stop training and you also opt out of Gemini app grounding, though not Google Search.

ChatGPT search. OpenAI's help page says ChatGPT searches when a question would benefit from the web, and may share queries with "third-party search providers such as Bing". Its crawler docs say sites that block OAI-SearchBot "will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers".

Perplexity. Perplexity's help centre says it searches the internet in real time and every answer carries numbered citations. Its crawler docs say PerplexityBot surfaces and links websites in results and is not used to train AI models.

None of these pages explains how one source beats another. Be wary of anyone who claims to know the formula.

What should a Malaysian SME do first?

Start with access and facts, because those are the parts you control.

  1. Ask the AI tools what they say today. Run 10 to 20 real customer questions, like "best aircon servicing in Petaling Jaya", in ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google AI Mode. Google lists Malaysia among AI Mode's countries, and Malay, English, Chinese and Tamil among its languages, so test in the ones your customers use. Note who gets named and which sites get cited.
  2. Let the right crawlers in. Check robots.txt and any firewall or CDN bot settings. Allow Googlebot, Bingbot, OAI-SearchBot and PerplexityBot.
  3. Get indexed by Google and Bing. Verify your site in Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools. Bing may matter for ChatGPT too, since OpenAI names it as one of its search providers.
  4. Put quotable facts on your key pages. Prices in RM, areas you cover, opening hours, numbers with their sources. That is what the GEO paper rewarded, and customers want it anyway.
  5. Fix your Google Business Profile. Google's guide says Business Profiles and Merchant Center feeds can help your products and services show in AI responses. Keep your name, address and phone number the same on every listing.
  6. Earn real mentions. Google says its AI features show what's said about you in blogs, videos and forums, but seeking inauthentic mentions "isn't as helpful as it might seem". Real reviews, local press and partner pages count. Bought posts don't.

Want to see where you stand first? Our free AI check runs 3 of your customer questions in 5 AI engines and sends back what each said, plus the first 3 fixes.

How do you measure GEO?

Ask the same questions on a schedule and count how often you're named, because one answer on one day proves nothing.

SparkToro and Gumshoe tested this in late 2025: about 600 volunteers ran 12 prompts 2,961 times in ChatGPT, Claude and Google's AI. In ChatGPT and Google's AI, the chance of the same list of brands coming back twice was under 1 in 100. The same order came up about 1 in 1,000 times. Their conclusion, published January 2026: how often you appear across many runs is a fair measure. Your "position" in an AI answer is not.

So track the same questions in the same engines every month. Record whether you were named, cited with a link, or missing, and which sites were used instead.

Free tools help:

  • Google Search Console has a Search generative AI performance report showing how often your pages appear in AI Overviews and AI Mode, by page, country and device. Google rolled it out to all websites on 31 August 2026, Search Engine Journal reports. It shows no clicks yet.
  • Bing Webmaster Tools has an AI Performance report, in public preview since February 2026, showing citations in Copilot and Bing's AI summaries.
  • Your analytics. OpenAI says ChatGPT adds utm_source=chatgpt.com to referral links, so that traffic is easy to spot.

Google's own guide warns: "No third-party tool has access to our internal ranking or AI systems." Every tracker, ours included, samples answers from outside. Our plan tracks 30 of your customers' questions in ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews and AI Mode, Gemini, Perplexity and Copilot, with a monthly report. See pricing for the full RM2,500 plan.

FAQ

Yes. OpenAI uses GPTBot for training and OAI-SearchBot for search, and says each robots.txt setting is independent. Block GPTBot if you want, but keep OAI-SearchBot allowed.

How long does GEO take?

Access fixes are quick: OpenAI says robots.txt changes take about 24 hours to apply, and Perplexity says up to 24 hours. Content, reviews and mentions take longer.

Do I need to rewrite my site in short chunks for AI?

No. Google's guide says there's no requirement to break content into tiny pieces and no ideal page length. Write clear pages for your customers.

Sources

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