Definition

GEO extends SEO foundations: accessibility, indexation, relevance and authority still matter. It adds work on answer extractability, evidence, attribution, entity coherence and the measurement of generative citations.

Useful distinctions

  • SEO supports discovery and ranking; GEO also observes selection and citation within a synthesis.
  • GEO can never guarantee that a model will cite a page.
  • Responsible measurement records the engine, question, language, market and observation date.

Observable signals

The concept can be examined through documented observations rather than promises:

  • crawler access
  • self-contained answers
  • dated sources
  • observed citations and mentions