What is GEO (generative engine optimisation)?
GEO, generative engine optimisation, is the work of getting your business named and cited when someone asks ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity or Grok a buying question. SEO gets you a place in a list of links; GEO gets you a place in the answer, where there are only two or three names.
About 5,400 people a month search "what is GEO" in the US alone (DataForSEO, read 7 October 2026). This page is the plain answer.
What changed
A buyer used to type "recruitment agency Dubai" into Google and get ten links. Now many buyers type a full question into ChatGPT: "Which recruitment agency in Dubai is good for finance jobs?" and get one written answer that names two or three agencies. The agencies not named are not in that answer.
The AI platforms do not know your business. They read pages on the web at the moment of the question, and they repeat what those pages say. GEO is the work of being on those pages, and of having your own pages be the ones they read.
GEO vs SEO: the difference in one table
| SEO | GEO | |
|---|---|---|
| Where the result shows | A list of links on Google or Bing | One written answer on ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity or Grok |
| What you compete for | A position on page 1 | One of the two or three names in the answer |
| What the engine reads | Your page, its links, its speed, its structure | The pages it finds for that question, at that moment: lists, directories, forums, news, your site |
| What counts most | Relevance, links, technical health | Being named on the pages the AI platforms read; being the page they quote; consistent facts everywhere |
| How you measure it | Rankings, clicks, impressions | Share of answers that name you, position in the answer, the pages cited, the competitors named instead |
| How fast it changes | Weeks to months | Answers change day to day; the trend shows over weeks |
The two overlap. A clear page that answers a question well does both jobs. The difference is in what you measure and where the brand has to appear.
What the AI platforms actually read
On 7 October 2026 we asked the five platforms 150 questions about AI visibility and recorded every page they cited: 2,875 different websites in 750 answers. Three things from that data matter for GEO:
- "Which tool" questions name many brands; "how" questions name almost none. When a buyer asks which tool or which company, the AI platforms named 13 to 23 different brands per question on average, many of them small. When a buyer asks how something works, they cited guides and blog posts and named no brand. So the "which" questions are where a business gets named, and the "how" questions are where a business gets quoted.
- Each platform reads different places. Perplexity cited LinkedIn in 55 answers, mostly short posts. ChatGPT cited YouTube in more answers than any other site. Gemini cited Reddit, YouTube and Medium. Grok cited small blogs.
- Lists and comparison pages are what get cited. Addresses containing "best" were cited 828 times; "alternative" 325; "glossary" 25. And in a wider study of AI search citations (AirOps and Digital Applied, 2026), 81% of the cited lists sat on other people's sites, not the brand's own.
The full numbers and the data file are on the research page.
One question from the scan
Here is one "which tool" question from the 7 October 2026 scan: "What are the best AI visibility tools in 2026?" Claude named 10 tools, Grok 11, Perplexity 6 and ChatGPT 5. Gemini named no tool in its answer and cited 17 pages instead.
The five answers cited 57 pages on 46 different websites. 24 of those pages had "best" in the address: lists of tools, written by someone else. Only 7 websites were cited by more than one platform.
For a business, this shows two things. The names in the answer came from lists on other websites. And each platform read its own set of lists, so being on one list is not enough for all five.
Five things to do this month
- Ask the questions yourself. Write five questions a buyer would type, ask all five platforms, and write down who they name and which pages they cite. That is where you start. The free scan on this site does it in 2 to 3 minutes.
- Get onto the pages that name your competitors. The citation list shows them: a directory, a comparison page, a forum thread. Get listed accurately, with the same name and description everywhere.
- Write one page per buyer question. The question as the heading, the answer in the first two sentences, a table where facts compare, a date, your name as the author. One page, one question.
- Let the AI crawlers in. Check that OAI-SearchBot (ChatGPT search), ClaudeBot and Claude-SearchBot (Claude), PerplexityBot (Perplexity) and Googlebot (Google and Gemini) are not blocked in your robots.txt, and that your pages read as plain text without JavaScript.
- Check again every week. The answers change. One check is a sample; the weekly trend is the result.
Limits
Nobody can promise what ChatGPT will say or when. The AI platforms read the web on their own schedule. The numbers above come from one run on one day, asked as a UAE buyer; your market may differ. GEO does not replace SEO: Google still sends many visits.
Questions people ask next
What does GEO stand for?
GEO stands for generative engine optimisation: the work of getting your business named in the answers that ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity and Grok write.
Is GEO just SEO with a new name?
No. SEO gets your page ranked in a list of links. GEO gets your business named inside one written answer, where there are only a few names. The work overlaps, but the result is measured differently.
Is GEO better than SEO for a small business?
Neither replaces the other. Google still sends many visits. But when a buyer asks ChatGPT for a recruitment agency in Dubai, it names two or three, and if yours is not one of them you are not in that answer. Do both; measure both.
What is the difference between GEO and AEO?
AEO (answer engine optimisation) is the older term for being the answer a search engine shows, such as a featured snippet. GEO covers the AI platforms that write answers. Most people now use the two words for the same work.
How long does GEO take to show results?
The AI platforms read the web on their own schedule, so nobody can promise a date. A weekly scan shows the trend either way.
How much does GEO cost with named.ae?
Measuring it is free once with the named.ae free scan, then from $149 a month for weekly scans. If you want our team to do the work, done-for-you services start at $2,500 a month, and the Kickstart audit is paid once. $199 for the first 20 paid orders, until 30 November 2026. After that, Kickstart costs $499.
Do I need a tool for GEO?
You can do the first check by hand: ask the five platforms your buyers' questions and write down who they name. A tool like named.ae does that every week, with the pages each AI read. The free scan does it once.