{"id":2524,"date":"2026-05-23T08:02:32","date_gmt":"2026-05-23T08:02:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/grp-digital.com\/nl\/?p=2524"},"modified":"2026-11-02T11:44:53","modified_gmt":"2026-11-02T10:44:53","slug":"generative-engine-optimization","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/grp-digital.com\/en\/kennisbank\/ai-zichtbaarheid\/generative-engine-optimization\/","title":{"rendered":"Getting found by AI: how Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) works"},"content":{"rendered":"

More and more often, people ask ChatGPT, Perplexity or Google AI Overviews instead of Google. A consumer asks: which product best fits my situation? A buyer asks: which partner can help me with this? The LLM reads dozens of sources and gives one answer, with a handful of brands attached. If you\u2019re not mentioned, at that moment you don\u2019t exist. Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is the part of SEO that does something about that: making sure LLMs know, trust and cite your brand.<\/p>\n\n

\"Illustratie:
Illustration: an AI answer names only a few brands. GEO decides whether you\u2019re one of them.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n

What is Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)?<\/h2>\n

GEO is optimising your content so that AI search engines and language models name and cite your brand in their answers. The term comes from academic research<\/a> (Aggarwal et al., presented at KDD 2024), which showed that you can measurably increase your visibility in generative search engines, partly by backing up content with citations, data and a clear structure. Where the classic angle of SEO is about a click to your site, GEO is about being mentioned in the answer itself. The end goal hasn\u2019t changed: that people find and trust you at the moment they make a choice.<\/p>\n\n

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SEO is not dead. But you\u2019ll have to use it differently.<\/p>\nGiacomo Perticara, founder and SEO strategist at GRP Digital<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n

SEO, AEO and GEO: one discipline, several layers<\/h2>\n

Let\u2019s clear up a misconception: AEO and GEO are extensions of SEO and simply fall under it. SEO remains the overarching field, namely making sure you get found. As search changes, layers are added. AEO (Answer Engine Optimisation) focuses on direct answers and featured snippets, GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) on being mentioned in AI-generated answers. Different terms, the same core: clear, reliable, well-structured content that people, search engines and LLMs understand. Do SEO well and you immediately lay the foundation for AEO and GEO.<\/p>\n

This affects consumers and businesses alike<\/h2>\n

One misconception is that AI search is mainly for business, or conversely only for consumers. It\u2019s both, and for many brands mainly consumer-focused. People increasingly use AI as an advisor: which product is best for my situation, what\u2019s a good alternative, what should I know before I buy. For online shops and brands, that answer decides whether you\u2019re in the running, before someone even opens a comparison site or product page. At the same time, professionals in specialised markets are also putting their question straight to an assistant more often. In both cases the same rule applies: whoever is mentioned wins trust before the first contact. Whoever is missing drops out of sight without realising it.<\/p>\n\n

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“It is still SEO. Only the priorities have shifted.”<\/p>\nGiacomo Perticara, founder and SEO strategist at GRP Digital<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n

How LLMs read your content<\/h2>\n\n
\"Illustratie:
Illustration: in two of the three ways LLMs read your content, your visibility decides whether you get mentioned.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Why do Reddit, LinkedIn and YouTube rank so high in the lists of most-cited sources? Because that is where experience lives, and a language model has none of its own. You see it the moment you look at who is actually writing at a company. At a manufacturer where we ran a knowledge session, there was a well-stocked technical knowledge base online, but hardly a single article had an author. All the substantive knowledge was there. The proof that a human who knew the subject was behind it was missing.<\/p>\n

Before you optimise, it helps to know how AI actually takes in your content. That happens in roughly three ways: from what the model once learned (training data, static and often outdated), by searching the web live (retrieval, with source attribution), and by visiting your site itself as an agent (emerging). In the last two, your visibility determines whether you get picked up. So there\u2019s room to improve, provided your content is readable and convincing.<\/p>\n

How to get your content chosen by AI<\/h2>\n