Generative engine optimization: get named when AI is asked who to call.

Generative engine optimization (GEO) is the effort to have your business named and cited when someone asks a generative AI assistant such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude or Copilot for a recommendation. A search engine returns a list of pages. A generative assistant writes a reply, and for a local question that reply usually contains a few company names.

How a recommendation is put together

An assistant draws on what it learned when it was trained, and on what it reads from the web if it searches while answering. For a question like “which solar installers in Carlsbad should I get quotes from”, it has to settle which companies do that work in that place and what is said about each. The difference between trained and searched material matters for a small company, and it’s the core of LLM SEO.

Being named versus being cited

Named means your company appears in the answer. Cited means a page is linked as a source for it. I record both, because they don’t always go together. An assistant can name your company because of a review site, a directory, a manufacturer’s dealer list or a local news story, and never link to your own website. It can also cite your page as a source of general information without recommending you.

This is the main way GEO differs from ordinary SEO: part of the work sits on pages you don’t own.

What I test to change it

I can’t see inside any of these products, so each item here’s a hypothesis to test for your business, not a rule. One consistent identity comes first: your site and every listing agreeing on the business name, the phone number, the services and the service area, so a machine can tell they describe one business. That is entity and schema work.

Then there’s what other people say: reviews that describe the job and the city, plus mentions on sites the assistants cite. Independent local mentions from trade associations, suppliers, chambers of commerce and local press are earned through local link building. Your own pages need plain statements of what you do and where, written so one sentence can be lifted and repeated accurately.

What I won’t do

A “top ten” list on your own site that ranks you first, seeded reviews and pages filled with phrases written for a machine are all off the table. Some of these tricks may move an answer for a while. Fake reviews break Google’s rules and put your Google Business Profile at risk, and a homeowner who clicks through to a self-awarded ranking can see what it is.

How I measure GEO

I run recommendation prompts per assistant and per city, and I report the misses along with the gains, because an AI recommendation is never guaranteed. For a company serving North County, that means asking about Carlsbad, Encinitas and Vista separately, because the names can change from one city to the next. Then I change one thing and ask again.

Where GEO stops

GEO covers recommendations. When the homeowner asks a factual question and a search engine quotes one page in reply, that is answer engine optimization (AEO), and the work there’s mostly on your own pages.