What is GEO and how does it differ from SEO?

 

For years, the basic aim of search engine optimisation was easy to explain. Someone typed a question or a few keywords into Google, a page of links appeared, and your job was to make sure your business appeared as high up that page as possible.

That system still matters, but it is no longer the only way people search.

Someone looking for a place to eat may now ask ChatGPT, Google AI Mode or another AI assistant a detailed question such as:

“Can you recommend a traditional village pub in the New Forest that serves Sunday lunch, welcomes dogs and has somewhere pleasant to sit outside?”

Instead of being shown ten links and left to investigate each pub individually, the user may receive a written response containing two or three recommendations, a summary of what each pub offers and links to the sources used to construct the answer.

That change is the reason people are talking about GEO.

SEO helps a website appear in search results. GEO is concerned with whether the information from that website is understood, trusted and used when an AI system assembles an answer.

The two are closely connected, but they are not exactly the same.

SEO helps the pub appear in a list of results

Imagine a village pub on the edge of the New Forest. It serves food, has a large garden, welcomes dogs and runs a popular Sunday roast, but its website only contains a homepage, a telephone number and a photograph taken sometime during the reign of the iPhone 6.

With traditional SEO, the pub might target searches such as:

• Village pub New Forest
• Dog-friendly pub near Fordingbridge
• Sunday roast New Forest
• Country pub with garden Hampshire
• Places to eat near Ringwood

The website would need clear service and location information, sensible page titles, useful written content, local business details, good reviews, links from relevant websites and a properly maintained Google Business Profile.

If that work is done well, the pub has a better chance of appearing prominently when someone searches for one of those phrases.

The result is still based around a familiar transaction. The customer searches, Google displays a selection of websites, and the customer chooses which ones to visit.

GEO introduces another stage because the search system may investigate the options on the customer’s behalf.

GEO helps the pub become part of the answer

An AI-generated recommendation may be assembled from several searches rather than one direct match.

Google explains that its AI search features can use a process known as query fan-out. This means the system may perform several related searches across different subjects and data sources before constructing a response.

A question about a dog-friendly pub with Sunday lunch and outdoor seating might therefore be broken into separate searches concerning the location, menu, dog policy, garden, opening hours and customer feedback.

This is where the quality and clarity of the pub’s online information become extremely important.

If the website clearly says that dogs are welcome in the bar and garden, Sunday roasts are served between midday and 4.00 pm, advance booking is recommended and the pub has a large outdoor dining area, the search system has useful facts it can work with.

If the website merely says, “A warm welcome awaits at our charming establishment”, the customer may find it pleasant, but an AI system cannot confidently determine whether the pub serves food, allows dogs or even has a garden.

The pub does not need to write like a machine. It does need to provide information with enough precision that both people and machines can understand it.

GEO has not made SEO obsolete

There is a predictable pattern whenever a new piece of marketing terminology appears. Someone announces that the previous form of marketing is dead, creates a downloadable guide and begins selling a replacement service by lunchtime.

SEO is not dead, and GEO has not replaced it.

Google’s guidance says that the established principles of SEO remain relevant to AI Overviews and AI Mode because those systems use information retrieved through Google’s search index and ranking systems.

Google also says that websites do not need special AI files, additional technical requirements or a new type of schema to become eligible for inclusion in its generative search features.

A page still needs to be accessible, crawlable, indexed and relevant before Google can consider using it as a source.

This means the village pub still needs the fundamentals. Its website should work properly on mobile phones, load reasonably quickly, explain what the pub offers and use a logical page structure.

Its opening hours, address and telephone number should be correct. Its menu should not be trapped inside a badly scanned PDF that takes twenty seconds to open on a phone.

GEO builds upon that foundation. It does not provide a convenient escape from doing the foundation properly.

The main difference is how visibility works

Traditional SEO tends to concentrate on positions, impressions and clicks.

The pub owner might want to know whether the website ranks first, fourth or seventeenth for “Sunday lunch New Forest”. They can then examine how many people saw the search result, how many clicked it and how many eventually booked a table.

GEO visibility is more complicated because an AI response does not always behave like a conventional list.

The pub could be named in the first paragraph of a recommendation, mentioned further down as an alternative or included as one of several cited sources. Its website might influence the answer without being prominently linked, or it could be linked without being described particularly well.

The wording may also vary when the same question is asked several times.

This makes GEO harder to measure. There is not always a single ranking position that can be added to a monthly report with a reassuring green arrow next to it.

Businesses need to look at a wider group of signals, including whether they are mentioned, how accurately they are described, which pages are cited and which outside sources appear to influence the recommendation.

AI search needs facts it can separate and verify

The language used on many business websites creates a problem because it prioritises atmosphere over information.

A pub website might describe “an unforgettable dining experience in the heart of the countryside”. That sounds polished, but it gives very little practical information.

The second version still sounds human, but it also answers questions that customers genuinely ask.

It identifies when food is served, mentions Sunday lunch, explains the dog policy and confirms that outdoor seating exists. Those details can be understood independently and included within a larger answer.

This principle applies across almost every type of organisation. A construction company should name the services it delivers and the regions it covers. A hotel should explain its room types, parking arrangements and accessibility. A consultant should describe the problems they solve rather than relying on phrases such as “strategic solutions for an evolving marketplace”.

Clear writing is not unsophisticated writing. In most cases, it is more difficult to produce than a page filled with vague claims.

Your website is only one part of the picture

An AI system may look beyond the pub’s own website when evaluating whether it belongs in a recommendation.

It might find the pub through its Google Business Profile, local tourism websites, newspaper coverage, customer reviews, food guides, social media pages or an article published by a nearby accommodation provider.

This matters because businesses have much less control over those sources.

If the pub website says dogs are welcome but several recent reviews say the dog-friendly area has been removed, the system has conflicting evidence. If the website says food is served seven days a week but the current opening hours suggest otherwise, confidence drops further.

Consistency has always been useful for local SEO, but it becomes even more valuable when an answer is being assembled from several sources.

The business name, location, opening hours, facilities and main services should agree wherever they appear. Old directory entries, abandoned social profiles and outdated menus can create confusion for customers as well as search systems.

First-hand evidence gives the answer more substance

A good GEO strategy should not involve rewriting every sentence to sound as though it was produced for a database.

The stronger approach is to publish information that only the business itself can provide.

• Current food and drinks menus
• Details about local suppliers
• Photographs of the garden and dining areas
• Information about parking
• The pub’s approach to dogs and families
• Accessibility information
• Details of regular events
• Seasonal opening hours
• The history of the building
• Answers to common booking questions

This type of material helps potential customers, supports traditional search and gives AI systems a better pool of evidence.

The original academic research that established GEO as a formal area of study found that adding relevant statistics, quotations and credible citations could improve the visibility of information within generated responses.

The researchers reported gains of up to 40 per cent in their controlled benchmark, although that should not be mistaken for a promise that every business can achieve the same result on live search platforms.

The practical lesson is that evidence usually carries more weight than unsupported marketing language.

For the pub, “our Sunday lunch is extremely popular” remains a claim. Explaining that booking is recommended because Sunday tables regularly fill in advance gives the statement useful context.

Reviews and outside mentions matter for different reasons

Customer reviews are particularly influential for hospitality businesses because they provide recent evidence about the actual experience.

A pub can claim that it offers friendly service, excellent food and a peaceful garden, but customers will naturally place more confidence in those claims when recent visitors describe the same qualities.

This does not mean businesses should start chasing artificial reviews or placing themselves in hundreds of low-quality directories. Google warns against seeking inauthentic mentions as a way of manipulating generative search results.

A small number of meaningful references from trusted local or industry sources is likely to be more useful than a large volume of questionable listings.

For the village pub, a feature on a respected local tourism site, inclusion in a walking guide or a recommendation from a nearby hotel provides useful context. It connects the pub with its location and helps establish why somebody visiting the area might choose it.

ChatGPT needs access to the website as well

Google is not the only system businesses need to consider.

OpenAI says that public websites can appear in ChatGPT search, provided its search crawler, OAI-SearchBot, is not blocked.

OpenAI treats this separately from GPTBot, which relates to the possible use of website content for model training. A business can therefore allow its pages to be discovered for search while choosing to block their use for training.

OpenAI also adds a utm_source=chatgpt.com parameter to referral links, allowing businesses to identify visits arriving from ChatGPT within their analytics data.

For most small businesses, this is not something that requires constant technical attention. It is simply worth checking that the website is not accidentally blocking legitimate search crawlers and that important content is available as readable text.

A photograph of a Sunday roast may look appealing, but the photograph alone does not confirm when it is served, what it costs or whether a vegetarian option is available.

What should a small business do about GEO?

The best starting point is not to create a separate collection of oddly written “AI pages”.

Instead, examine the website from the perspective of a customer asking detailed questions.

The answers should be placed naturally within the relevant pages, rather than hidden inside one enormous FAQ section that nobody enjoys reading.

The business should also maintain its local listings, gather genuine reviews, publish current photographs and create useful content around the surrounding area.

A village pub may be relevant to people searching for nearby walks, places to eat after visiting a local attraction or somewhere to stop while travelling through the New Forest.

This is where good SEO and GEO begin to overlap. Both reward websites that understand what their customers are trying to do.

GEO changes the search journey rather than the basic objective

The objective remains familiar. A business wants to be found by the right people at the moment they need its product or service.

What has changed is the route between the question and the business.

Some customers will continue using traditional Google results. Others will use maps, social media, review websites or an AI assistant that gathers information from several sources before making a recommendation.

A well-optimised business needs to be visible across that wider journey.

For our village pub, success no longer means ranking for “pub near me” alone. It also means ensuring that when somebody asks for a dog-friendly New Forest pub with Sunday lunch and a garden, the available evidence gives an AI system a sound reason to include it.

That is what GEO is really about. It is not a collection of secret prompts or a replacement for SEO. It is the process of making a business easier to understand, verify and recommend wherever modern search chooses to present the answer.