What is SEO?
SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is the set of technical, content and link-building strategies that help a website rank higher in Google and Bing. Classic SEO rests on three pillars: technical SEO (site architecture, speed, indexing, mobile usability), on-page SEO (content, keywords, meta tags, internal links) and off-page SEO (authoritative backlinks, brand mentions, local citations).
The core SEO metric is the position in search results and the organic traffic that flows from it. The user sees ten blue links and clicks the one they want.
What is GEO?
GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation) is a newer discipline that emerged with the AI answer engines of 2023–2024. Instead of ten blue links, the user receives a single synthesised answer that the AI has stitched together from multiple sources. The goal of GEO is to make sure your website is one of those cited sources.
The core GEO building blocks are: llms.txt and llms-full.txt files (a machine-readable summary of your content), agent-card.json (a business identity card published in the /.well-known/ directory), an updated robots.txt with explicit AI crawler directives, and rich JSON-LD structured data (Organization, Service, FAQPage, Review, AggregateRating).
Key differences
| Aspect | SEO | GEO |
|---|---|---|
| Goal | High position in the SERP | Citation inside an AI answer |
| Primary platforms | Google, Bing | ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini |
| Core metric | Position + CTR | Citation frequency + visibility |
| Content format | Keywords, long-form text | Factual blocks, FAQs, lists |
| Technical files | sitemap.xml, robots.txt | + llms.txt, agent-card.json, ai.json |
| Structure | HTML + meta | HTML + JSON-LD + speakable |
| Time to results | 4–9 months | 2–6 weeks (after deployment) |
Why you need both in 2026
Industry data suggests that roughly 30–40% of search queries already pass through AI answer engines or Google AI Overviews. Yet most users still trust classic results for commercial queries. Abandoning SEO would be a mistake; ignoring GEO is just as costly. A well-optimised business needs to be visible across both channels at the same time — in the classic Google top three and inside AI answer citations.
Practical steps
- Run an SEO and GEO audit — check which files you have and which are missing.
- Deploy llms.txt, llms-full.txt and agent-card.json (in the .well-known directory).
- Update robots.txt — explicitly allow AI crawlers (GPTBot, PerplexityBot, ClaudeBot, etc.).
- Add JSON-LD: Organization, WebSite, ProfessionalService, FAQPage, Review, AggregateRating.
- Produce factual content with clear Q&A blocks that lend themselves to citation.
- Mark up author and date — AI engines reward E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trust).
- Use IndexNow and keep your sitemap.xml regularly refreshed.
Conclusion
SEO and GEO are not competitors — they are two layers of the same visibility strategy. A business running SEO alone in 2026 is leaving 30–40% of potential queries from AI engines on the table. A business running GEO alone is missing the classic conversions from Google's top three. The most successful businesses run both in parallel.