Short answer
Generative engine optimization (GEO) is the practice of making your content more likely to be used and cited by AI assistants that answer with generated text, such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude. The term comes from a 2023 Princeton-led paper published at KDD 2024. For app developers, GEO means getting your product named when people ask an assistant for a recommendation.
GEO, defined
Search engines return links. Generative engines, assistants like ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude with web search, return a written answer built from sources they retrieve. GEO is about being one of those sources, and being named in the answer.
The term was introduced in “GEO: Generative Engine Optimization” by Pranjal Aggarwal and co-authors from Princeton, Georgia Tech, the Allen Institute for AI and IIT Delhi. First posted in November 2023 and accepted to KDD 2024, it framed GEO as a way for content creators to improve their visibility in generative engine responses, and released GEO-bench, a benchmark of queries across many domains.
You’ll also see AEO (answer engine optimization) and “LLM SEO”. In practice they describe the same goal.
What the research found
The paper tested content edits and measured how much of the generated answer drew on the edited source. Headline results:
| Method | Score | vs. no optimization (19.5) |
|---|---|---|
| Quotation addition | 27.8 | +43% |
| Statistics addition | 25.9 | +33% |
| Cite sources | 24.9 | +28% |
| Keyword stuffing | 17.8 | −9% |
The authors summarize it as GEO boosting visibility “by up to 40%”, with effectiveness that “varies across domains”. The lesson that carries over: specific, sourced, quotable content helps; stuffing keywords doesn’t.
GEO vs SEO vs ASO
| SEO | ASO | GEO | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Goal | Rank in search results | Rank in App Store / Google Play search | Be cited and named in AI answers |
| Where | Google, Bing | Store search and browse | ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, other assistants |
| You mostly control | Your site | Your listing metadata | Your site, plus who writes about you |
| Success looks like | Position, clicks | Store rank, installs | Visibility %, share of voice, citations |
GEO doesn’t replace SEO. Gemini grounds its answers on Google Search, ChatGPT search depends on OpenAI’s search crawler and Claude on Anthropic’s, so a page that can’t be crawled or indexed can’t be cited. For the app-specific comparison, see ASO vs GEO.
What GEO looks like for an app
- A website that states, in text, what the app is, who it’s for and what makes it different.
- Being named on the lists, reviews and threads that assistants cite for your category.
- Honest comparison and alternative pages for “A vs B” and “alternative to Z” questions.
- Consistent facts across your site, store listings and profiles.
- Crawler access for OAI-SearchBot, Googlebot, Google-Extended (Gemini grounding) and Claude-SearchBot.
- A fixed question set you re-check weekly to see whether any of it worked (by hand, or with a tracker such as MentionReach; see pricing).
The step-by-step version is in how to get your app recommended by ChatGPT.
Common GEO myths
- “You need special markup or an AI file.” Google says there’s no special schema and no new machine-readable files needed for its AI features.
- “You can track your exact AI rank.” Lists change between runs; the SparkToro and Gumshoe study saw the same list less than 1 time in 100. Track how often you’re named.
- “GEO is just SEO.” It builds on SEO, but the unit of success is different: being named in an answer, often on a page you don’t own.
Frequently asked questions
What does GEO stand for?
Generative engine optimization: improving how often AI assistants that generate answers, such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude, use and cite your content or name your product.
Is GEO the same as AEO?
Mostly. Answer engine optimization (AEO) is an older term for optimizing toward direct answers. GEO was coined for generative AI assistants specifically. People use them interchangeably.
Does GEO work for mobile apps?
Yes. When someone asks an assistant for an app recommendation, the answer draws on web pages that describe apps. GEO for apps is about being clearly described on those pages and on your own site.
How do you measure GEO?
Ask a fixed set of real user questions several times per assistant and track visibility (how often you're named), average rank, share of voice and which pages are cited.
Sources
- GEO: Generative Engine Optimization (Aggarwal et al., KDD 2024) · arXiv
- AI features and your website · Google Search Central
- Grounding with Google Search · Google AI for Developers
- Overview of OpenAI crawlers · OpenAI
- AI recommendations change with nearly every query (SparkToro × Gumshoe study) · Search Engine Journal
