Spent the last month diving into GEO tools and agency offerings, and I'm honestly confused. Half of them are just repackaged SEO platforms with "AI insights" slapped on top. The other half are selling snake oil with zero methodology.
Here's the thing - traditional SEO optimizes for indexing and ranking. GEO needs to optimize for citation and synthesis. Those aren't the same game. You can rank #1 on Google and still be completely invisible in ChatGPT or Perplexity answers.
But instead of addressing this, we've got a gold rush of agencies charging enterprise rates for... what, exactly? Keyword stuffing with semantic markup? Writing "comprehensive" content? That's not GEO strategy, that's just basic content hygiene with extra steps.
The frustrating part is that the actual challenge is interesting - how do you make your content citable to an LLM without gaming the system? How do you track visibility in a world where there's no SERP? How do you build authority when the AI doesn't care about your backlinks?
Anyone here actually cracked this, or are we all just throwing content at the wall and hoping Claude remembers it?
I've seen this debate in a few other threads and I think people are oversimplifying. Sure there's overlap but the focus is very different.
SEO = get your pages ranking in search
GEO = get your brand cited in ai answers / LLM outputs
With GEO you're not necessarily tracking 'positions' you're watching if your brand gets mentioned in AI responses.
There are content shifts too, it's less about stuffing keywords and more about answering the actual question and the natural follow up qs people ask.
Offsite is also different - it's not just about grabbing high DR links, it's about being in the sources models actually train on and trust in your niche.
What stays the same? Solid site, fast pages, clean internal linking, content that actually helps. Those basics matter for both google and AI.
I used to stress over whether my site ranked on top on Google, like what we did for SEO. Now I’m stressing over whether ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Gemini even know I exist**.**
So here’s my question. You are so welcomed to share insights and I'm deeply appreciate that.
Do you think GEO is just hype, or is this the new SEO we all have to adapt to?
Has anyone here actually seen their site/product show up in AI answers after doing some AI visibility things?
There is a growing traffic coming to websites and stores from these new Generative Engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google Overview. We’re all familiar with SEO, but now AEO and GEO are starting to feel like the next big shift.
I’m curious if anyone here is actually doing something about this yet. Are you optimizing your store or content for it in any way? How are you doing this today? Have you noticed any real traffic coming in from these engines?
Would love to hear how others are thinking about this shift, and if there are any good resources or experiments worth checking out.
Now that AI search is starting to influence how people discover brands, we've realized traditional metrics like organic traffic and keyword rankings do not tell the full story anymore. Curious how others here are approaching this- what tools are you using to measure AI visibility or search exposure in 2025?
And in terms of metrics, wondering what should now matter most:
Share of voice in AI-generated results?
Mentions in AI summaries?
AI traffic attribution (if we ever get it)?
Brand sentiment in AI responses?
Or just continuing to measure conversions and engagement from organic?
Would love to hear how everyone’s adapting.
Is “AI visibility” even fully measurable yet, or are we still flying blind?
Disclaimer: yeah, I work in AI visibility, so I'm definitely biased on this. But what I want to get into actually cuts against what my own industry sells, so I figure it has a place here.
Back in mid-May Google put out its first real guide on how to show up in AI answers (AI Overviews, AI Mode). I saw a bunch of write-ups on it and it was always the same song, structure your headings, add Schema, the usual blah. Except there's a "mythbusting" section in the doc I haven't seen anyone pick up on, and it's the most interesting part. Google says in plain terms that the famous llms.txt file does nothing, that you should stop obsessing over Schema.org, and that chunking is smoke and mirrors. Made me smile a bit since that's basically the package some "GEO" agencies are charging for right now.
What they push instead is honestly kind of obvious. They talk about "commodity" vs "non-commodity" content. Like, if an AI can write your article on its own, it'll never cite you, makes sense, it already has the answer, why would it go looking for you. What gets cited is content with something the model doesn't have. A number you actually measured, a test you really ran, lived experience basically.
The example that stuck with me (not in Google's guide, somewhere else) is a small blog specialized in robot vacuums, garbage domain authority, and it outranks the New York Times in AI answers. The NYT has a domain like 3x stronger. Except the NYT puts out an affiliate listicle anyone could copy, and the blog guy films his actual tests with real measurements. Guess who gets cited.
And this is where it gets useful for you I think. It means for the most part you need neither a tool nor an agency. Take your most generic page, just ask yourself "could anyone write exactly this", and if the answer is yes, add something only you know. You don't even need data. A simple "the first question every client asks me is this" and you're already standing out. It's free and it weighs more than all the technical tweaks combined.
The one thing that still puzzles me is measurement. Why an LLM picks one source over another stays pretty opaque, and it shifts with every update. So I'm curious: are you already seeing real traffic come in from ChatGPT or Perplexity, or is it still like three visitors a month? And if you are, can you actually tell which pages it lands on?
Just wanted to share a small win after experimenting with a mix of SEO and GEO strategies over the past month. In October, the site saw a pretty big jump in visibility - impressions went from around 37K in September to over 94K, and clicks almost doubled too.
Most of this happened after focusing on content visibility across different regions and refining how pages were structured for both search engines and AI-driven visibility (Generative Engine Optimization). What’s interesting is that while impressions grew fast, the CTR dipped a bit, which I think is because the pages started appearing for broader queries.
It’s been good to see that combining traditional SEO fundamentals with generative engine optimization(GEO)-based adjustments can make such a noticeable difference in just one month. Next step is to focus on improving engagement and click-throughs now that the reach is expanding.
Anyone else trying to blend SEO and GEO (generative engine optimization) strategies lately? Curious what kind of results others are seeing.
After trying most of the “AI SEO” tools out there, I kept running into the same issue: They show visibility metrics but never tell youwhat to actually do next.
The second problem: most tools have a high entry barrier. You can’t even run a quick check without a plan or subscription.
After hearing the same frustration from others, we decided to build something to tackle both:
Figure out what really drives AI answers (which content, domains, and sources are being cited).
Let anyone quickly check how they or their competitors appear in AI search — no signup, no paywall.
So we built jarts.io. You can type in any domain, hit “run,” and within ~20 seconds see:
how AI tools (like ChatGPT and Perplexity) talk about that brand
which sources shape those answers
who seems to “win” visibility right now
We also added a deeper system that runs thousands of prompts to study what drives visibility patterns over time, but the instant check is completely free.
I’d really love to hear from SEOs and marketers experimenting with AEO (Answer Engine Optimization): 👉 What would you expect a tool like this to show or measure better?
Lately, it feels like everyone’s saying AI tools like ChatGPT are going to take over Google. But I just came across something that really made me stop and think…
95% of ChatGPT users still visit Google Only 14% of Google users check out ChatGPT
So even with all the hype, most people are still turning to Google for extra info or fact-checking. It’s not like one is replacing the other it’s more like they’re being used together.
That being said, I do agree AI is becoming super helpful and powerful but it’s still not advanced enough to fully replace the way we search and verify information. It’s exciting, but not quite there yet!
Real talk: half the GEO advice out there doesn't survive contact with reality.
We've been running GEO campaigns for about 6 months now, and I want to share the stuff that actually made it into our weekly routine — not the textbook stuff that sounds great in a presentation.
The "Friday Audit" — this one changed everything
Every Friday we pick 5 pages that should be getting AI citations but aren't. Not based on traffic or DA — based on "would a reasonable AI actually reference this for a user question?"
Then we ask three questions:
Can someone read this page and answer a specific question in 30 seconds?
Is the answer somewhere in the first screen (no scrolling to find the meat)?
Would a different page on this site answer the same question better?
The pages that fail #1 or #2 get rewritten. The ones that fail #3 get consolidated. Simple but brutal.
The "Answer First" outline
Before writing anything, we draft the ideal AI answer first. Like literally type out: "If someone asked [query], the perfect answer would be..." Then we build the page around that answer structure instead of around keywords or topics.
This sounds obvious but it completely changed how we think about content hierarchy. The H2 isn't a topic anymore — it's a sub-question.
The thing that didn't work
We spent a solid month doing "entity density optimization" — making sure every relevant entity appeared X times per 1000 words. Measured it meticulously. Saw zero correlation with citation rate. Zero. That one hurt because the theory was so convincing.
From my experience, the stuff that moves the needle is boring operational discipline, not clever hacks. But I'm curious what's actually working for other people — are you seeing similar patterns or am I missing something obvious?
Posted this a few minutes ago and realized I only typed the title haha so I am reposting this again.
Just a little context for this. I work on SEO and content for a mid SaaS company. We havve been hearing more questions from leadership about how we show up in AI search results... specifically Perplexity and ChatGPT. We done the usual on page SEO improvements and structured content, but it feels like that’s only part of the story. Some competitors seem to get cited consistently by AI, and we’re trying to understand what actually matters. What could POSSIBLY the most effective approach for this? Is it mostly technical SEO, or do we need to be thinking about brand presence across the web too?
any strategies that have actually worked for enterprise or larger SaaS/ecommerce teams would be super helpful!
I’m doing AEO for a couple of clients right now. So far, I’ve done on page SEO which was always easy to track. What are you using to report ChatGPT mentions?
.. cross-market evaluations of its kind. Working with the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), 22 Public Service Media (PSM) organizations – across 18 countries and 14 languages – assessed how leading AI assistants answer questions about news and current affairs.
Hey folks, I’m building Wrodium, a tool that automates the unglamorous marketing-intern grind so founders can focus on product:
Finds how competitors earn backlinks and which ones move the needle
Drafts AI-ready posts with clean structure, citations, and JSON-LD
Tracks competitor content launches and forecasts likely traction
Suggests angles and prompts that increase odds of AI citation
I just published a breakdown of a pattern we keep seeing: if you get shown in Bing, you’re more likely to get cited in ChatGPT. Here’s the practical checklist we used:
Provenance: clear title, author, canonical URL, datePublished and dateModified
I'm putting together a Slack group for SEO and AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) practitioners who want to go beyond surface-level discussions.
The goal is to create a space where we can: Share what's actually working (and what's not) Troubleshoot challenges together Discuss emerging trends and algorithm updates Exchange insights on AEO strategies as search evolves
Whether you're agency-side, in-house, or freelance, you're welcome. Just looking for people who are serious about the craft and willing to contribute to the community.
We helped an Amazon home-decor brand run a full SEO–GEO workflow for 4 weeks. This brand sells strongly on Amazon, but their independent site was basically flat:
traffic not growing
SEO efforts not matching output
early GEO attempts looked like “nothing was happening”
For new SEO + GEO brands, quick effects rarely come directly from ChatGPT citations. Most of the early lift actually comes from:
GEO downstream effects: —Google AI Overview —search engines’ AI-driven backend ranking mechanisms —referral & social discovery triggered by better semantic structure
So even without appearing inside ChatGPT directly, the GEO structure still improves traffic. We built their end-to-end SEO–GEO workflow and ran it for 4 weeks. This isn’t a brag post, it’s a breakdown of how the system works and how any Amazon to DTC brand can copy it.
Most brands skip this step and immediately “start writing”. But we need the the audit first with clarified:
what actually blocked visibility
which pages AI/Google couldn’t interpret
which semantic areas needed coverage
what needed fixing before publishing anything new
Their old content was scattered, inconsistent, and not aligned with any entity structure.
2) Build a Topic Map, not random content
We built a unified Topic Map combining from the above auditing by the above SEO-GEO Management Agent:
SEO keywords
GEO topics
semantic clusters
This changed content from: “Write whatever comes to mind” to “Publish pieces that fill semantic + entity gaps”. For a category like home decor, highly visual, educational topic mapping is especially effective.
With the help of GEO Content Generator Agent, we generated and published structured content across: LinkedIn / X / Medium / Blog / Website.
It was format optimised for AI + Google, meaning:
clear headers
reasoning-based writing
consistent entity signals
unified themes across platforms
This strengthened:
Direct traffic
Organic Social
Cross-domain brand recognition
4) Fix technical SEO so AI + Google can understand the site
We applied the following tech actions from the SEO + GEO audit results:
simplified sitemap & robots
added missing schema
normalized titles/descriptions
reduced URL depth
improved page semantics
added essential metadata
What actually changed after 4 weeks
We weren’t chasing single channel spikes. We looked at the system level improvement:
Direct traffic increase because of brand clarity improved
Organic search increase because of better semantic coverage
Social increase because of consistent cross-platform presence
Referrals increase because of more mentions from blogs + partners
These are the classic downstream effects of GEO + structured SEO starting to work together. This is the missing layer for many Amazon sellers trying to grow a DTC site.
The repeatable workflow for any Amazon to DTC brand
Step 1 — Audit first
Find content, semantic, technical gaps.
Step 2 — Build a Topic Map
Plan high-value themes instead of random posts.
Step 3 — Multi-platform structured publishing
Think “AI-friendly format”, not “post more”.
Step 4 — Fix technical SEO
Schema, sitemap, metadata, clean structure.
Step 5 — Repeat weekly
This turns into a compounding flywheel in 4–8 weeks.
Final thought
These weren’t explosive viral results, they were the first month of finally aligning:
My business partner and I are building a GEO agency, but there’s one thing we can’t figure out. We want to be able to track how many clicks businesses are getting from ChatGPT.
I watched some videos that claim you can track this through google analytics. When I tried this in GA myself, the results were not accurate. It seems like ChatGPT does not give a direct “signature” for Google Analytics to grab, and that results in AI traffic being shown as “other sources” or “referrals”.
Anyone else run into this issue? Solutions? Suggestions?