GEO and AEO
AI search visibility: getting named by ChatGPT without the hype
Claims that SEO is dead are loud and thin on evidence. What we can say is narrower: AI tools quote pages they can find, understand and trust.
Nobody outside the labs knows exactly how ChatGPT, Perplexity or Claude choose sources. Anything that claims a formula is guessing. The advice below is what has held up as common sense.
The real question behind GEO and AEO
Generative engine optimisation and answer engine optimisation are new names for old work. Make a page clear. Make the claim checkable. Make sure other sites mention you in context.
Marketers keep asking whether anyone has really seen results, and whether this is just SEO in new clothes. The fair answer is that it overlaps heavily, with a few additions. Short answer: mostly the same. If your page is not indexed by Google or Bing, an AI tool that uses web search has little to quote.
Tracking is the hard part. Some tools now report AI mentions alongside rankings, but the data is young. Treat any dashboard as a rough guide.
Perplexity and ChatGPT with search both show their sources, which makes a rough audit possible. Ask ten questions your customers would ask, note which pages are named, and repeat monthly. It is crude. It is also free.
Treat every claim about AI ranking factors with suspicion, ours included. The field changed several times in 2025, and it will change again.
Five changes that cost little
None of these are secrets. All of them help ordinary search too.
Put the answer first
Open a page with the direct answer in two or three sentences, then the detail. Tools lift passages, and a self-contained passage is easier to lift.
Name your entities
Say who you are, where you work, what you sell and who it is for. Ambiguity makes you hard to cite.
Show your sources
Pages that cite primary material and date their claims read as more trustworthy to people, and probably to models.
Be mentioned elsewhere
Trade sites, local publications and relevant blogs that name your business give outside confirmation. That is where a placement can help.
Keep the basics healthy
Crawlable pages, sensible titles, fast loading, a sitemap and Bing Webmaster Tools set up.
Where bought links fit, and where they do not
A link is not a citation. A mention in a relevant article, with your name next to a clear description, can be more useful to an AI system than a bare link. Write the brief for your placement accordingly: say what you do and for whom. Be wary.
That is possible here. Each order lets you give your own prompt or supply a finished article, so you can steer the context rather than leave it to the automatic mode. One clean link goes to the page you choose.
No placement can force a tool to name you. We would be wary of anyone who says otherwise. Start with the do backlinks still matter overview if you want the wider picture, and see content that earns links for the page-side work. Simple honesty.
Check Bing too. ChatGPT search has relied on Bing-style web results, so a page missing from Bing is easy to overlook. Verify the site in Bing Webmaster Tools, submit your sitemap, and look at which pages are indexed. It takes under an hour and often fixes more than a week of rewriting.
Old habit, new angle
| Classic SEO habit | AI-search version |
|---|---|
| Target one keyword per page | Cover the question and its follow-ups clearly |
| Build links for authority | Earn mentions that describe you accurately |
| Track rankings | Also sample prompts and note whether you appear |
| Write for the snippet | Write passages that stand alone |
