Understanding it
The term comes from a research paper published in November 2023 by researchers from Princeton, Georgia Tech, the Allen Institute for AI and IIT Delhi. They studied how the form of a piece of content affects whether it gets reused in a generated answer.
A traditional search engine shows a list of links. An answer engine writes a text, then sometimes cites its sources. GEO aims for that citation: your brand named, and linked if possible, when a prospect asks a question about your field.
The levers stay close to SEO: pages that crawlers can access, clear answers, verifiable proof and a brand mentioned outside its own website. Google itself says no special optimization is required for its AI features, beyond search best practices.
A concrete example
Illustrative example: an insurance brokerage firm
A prospect asks an assistant: “which broker should I choose to insure a vehicle fleet?” The answer cites three sources. The firm is not among them, even though it has handled this topic for years.
GEO work starts by listing these questions, then checking what the website actually answers. Here, the “vehicle fleet” page talked about the company but answered no specific question. It is rewritten with selection criteria, coverage details and a worked example with figures approved by the client. The following checks show whether the page starts getting picked up.
The common mistake
Creating pages “for AI”
Writing parallel pages aimed at bots, stuffed with Q&As, creates duplicates and muddles the site. Answer engines read the same pages as your visitors. Improve the pages you already have before creating new ones.