Generative engine optimization: what it is, what is proven, what to do

Where the term comes from

Wikipedia defines GEO as "the practice of improving visibility in responses generated by generative artificial intelligence (AI) systems" and lists answer engine optimization (AEO), AIO, LLMO and "AI SEO" as other names for the same idea. The term comes from a 2023 research paper, GEO: Generative Engine Optimization by Aggarwal and co-authors, presented at KDD 2024. In their benchmark, content changes boosted visibility in generative engine responses by up to 40%, and which changes worked varied by domain.

That last point matters when you buy: there is no single checklist that works for every business, so any GEO work should be tested against the questions your own buyers ask.

What the platforms themselves say

What GEO work actually consists of

1. Access. AI search crawlers can read your pages: robots.txt allows them, your firewall does not block them, and the main text is in the HTML rather than only rendered by JavaScript.
2. Presence in the source pool. AI answers cite pages that already rank or are retrieved for the question. If a buyer question returns directories and competitors but never you, an assistant has little to cite.
3. Quotable facts. What you sell, where, for whom, price range, and proof, stated in plain sentences near the top of the page. A page that opens with a slogan gives an answer engine nothing to quote.
4. Answer pages. One page per valuable question, with a direct two- or three-sentence answer first, then specifics.
5. Structured data and llms.txt. Cheap to add and harmless. Google says it does not need them for AI features; we include them because they make your facts machine-readable for any system that does read them, not because they guarantee citations.
6. Re-testing. The same questions, every month, so you know what moved.

What we have seen on our own sites

Why we built this: we run our own software products and measure, in our own analytics, where signups come from. Over 34 days, visitors arriving from ChatGPT produced 46 signups on one product, 27 on a second and 15 on a third; Gemini sent 11. ChatGPT visitors converted from visit to signup at about 31% (internal analytics, November 2026). That is a small channel next to Google, but it converts, and we wanted the same checks for every site we run. This audit is those checks, written up for your site.

Two lessons from watching that data. First, AI referrals arrive on pages that answer a specific job clearly, not on generic home pages. Second, the volume is small but the intent is high, so a handful of visits a week can matter more than their count suggests.

What we do for you

The MyClawn AI Search Audit turns the list above into a monthly routine: 15 to 20 buyer questions tested in live search, a crawler and page audit, a 0-100 score with its formula shown, and the fixes written out from your own facts: JSON-LD schema, an llms.txt, a robots.txt check, an FAQ block and two answer pages. $39 a month for one site, $129 for four audits. See how it works and pricing.

Red flags when buying GEO

• Guaranteed mentions. No one controls what an assistant says. We will not promise it either.
• "Secret" files or markup. Google states plainly that none is required for its AI features.
• Fake reviews, forum seeding or bought links. These risk the trust signals answer engines rely on.
• Results without a baseline. Ask for the list of questions tested before any work, and the same list after.

Questions

More about AI Search Audit

Sources (checked 2026-11-09): en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generative_engine_optimization · arxiv.org/abs/2311.09735 · developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/ai-features · developers.openai.com/api/docs/bots · docs.perplexity.ai/guides/bots · developers.google.com/crawling/docs/crawlers-fetchers/google-common-cr