Generative engine optimisation and search engine optimisation share a lot of skills and almost none of their mechanics. This is where they actually differ, and what carries over.
| SEO | GEO / AI visibility | |
|---|---|---|
| What you are competing for | A position in a list of ten links | Being named in one written answer |
| How the winner is chosen | Pages ranked against a query | Evidence retrieved, then summarised |
| Where the leverage sits | Mostly on pages you own | Mostly on pages you do not own |
| Result stability | Same query, near-identical results | Same question, different wording each run |
| How you measure | Rank position and traffic | A rubric score across a fixed question set |
| What you get told | Impressions, clicks, positions | Named or not named, and who instead |
| Typical time to move | Months | Weeks to months, gated by third parties |
| Traffic | The click is the point | Often no click at all, the mention is the point |
In search you are optimising a page. In GEO you are optimising the evidence about you. A search engine asks which page best answers this query. An assistant reads a pile of material about your category and writes a summary, so the real question is whether that pile mentions you at all.
This is why teams with excellent SEO sometimes score zero on AI visibility. Their own pages are immaculate and the listicles, review sites and forum threads the model actually reads do not name them.
A useful way to hold both: SEO is about being findable. GEO is about being mentionable. The second one is decided largely by other people's pages.
Keep the SEO programme running, because classic search still sends most of the traffic in most categories. Add a measurement of the AI surface, because you almost certainly have no idea what it says about you. Then let the two share work where they overlap: the same third-party outreach that earns links also earns citations, so it can usually be planned once and counted twice.
If you want the fuller treatment of how answer engines choose who to name and how to score it, read the AI visibility guide. If you are deciding between monitoring tools, the tools comparison covers price and engine coverage.
No. Classic search still sends most of the traffic for most categories. GEO is a second surface that behaves differently, and the sensible position is to keep doing SEO while measuring the new one rather than betting the budget on either.
Partly. Being crawlable, being linked to and being mentioned on authoritative third-party pages helps in both. But strong rankings with weak third-party mentions can still produce a zero, and we have measured exactly that.
Generative engine optimisation, sometimes written as AEO for answer engine optimisation. The terms are used interchangeably and mean influencing what generative assistants say about you.
Whichever one you are not measuring. Most teams have some form of SEO reporting and no idea what an assistant says about them, so the AI side is usually the gap.
Get the free score for the one you do not. One number and the competitor named instead of you.
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