“Cease making an attempt to make GEO occur. It’s not going to occur.”
With apologies to Gretchen Wieners and the writers of “Imply Women,” the road looks like the one approach to begin this dialog a few buzzword making the rounds: GEO (which is now, allegedly, speculated to imply Generative Engine Optimization).
This text grew out of a LinkedIn publish/open plea I wrote lately about this furore, which unexpectedly took off – approaching 10,000 impressions, 4 dozen feedback, and loads of laughter at dangerous acronym concepts. Clearly, this struck a nerve with the web optimization and advertising group.
On the floor, to be honest, the idea is smart. We’re in a brand new period the place AI-driven search engines like google and yahoo are shaping how content material is retrieved, summarized, and delivered. Adapting web optimization methods for that actuality is vital; nonetheless…
No one Will Say “G-E-O”
Acronyms survive in the event that they’re pronounceable. In the event that they aren’t simple to say aloud, and likewise occur to spell an precise phrase, individuals will say it like a phrase.
To my level, nobody goes to spell out “G-E-O” when speaking about Generative Engine Optimization. It merely doesn’t roll off the tongue properly. Inevitably, it turns into the phrase “geo” – and that’s the place the difficulty begins.
The phrase geo is historic. It comes from the Greek phrase gē (γη), which means earth or floor. It’s the foundation of a whole lot of phrases we already use daily: geography, geology, geothermal, geopolitics, geospatial, geotracking, geotagging, geomapping. In expertise, it’s baked into ideas like geo-targeting and geo-fencing, and in all circumstances, geo explicitly means “the earth” in some kind or one other.
The linguistic baggage right here is just too heavy. There is no such thing as a quantity of wishful considering that may make “gee-ee-oh” imply one thing not associated to the earth.
The Branding Downside: Phrases Have Which means
Phrases and acronyms aren’t clean slates. They carry cultural, historic, and linguistic connotations and recollections that may’t be erased by decree.
Attempt to rebrand “GEO” and folks’s brains will nonetheless immediately (or a minimum of initially) learn it as “geography.” They could pause and take a look at the context, after which resolve “Oh, this have to be G-E-O which implies generative engine optimization, which is like S-E-O however for AI.” That’s quite a lot of work we’re asking the general public to do for 3 little letters.
It’s the identical cause I may by no means (not that I’d ever) persuade our advertising workforce to rebrand our web optimization plugin as an “FBI” plugin. Regardless of how laborious we attempt to make FBI imply For Higher Indexing, we’re not going to have the ability to overcome the a long time of heavy utilization that claims FBI means Federal Bureau of Investigation.
On this case, GEO doesn’t have a long time of historic utilization; it has actually millennia of which means that IS NOT THIS. Hijacking an acronym with a number of centuries of utilization isn’t innovation; it’s confusion.
The web optimization Downside: Competing With Entrenched Which means
Let’s set branding apart and take a look at this purely from an web optimization perspective.
Search engines like google reward authority, longevity, and relevance. The phrase geo has a long time of backlinks, established search quantity, and deeply entrenched utilization. Each authoritative sign in Google’s system factors to geo = geography/geographical/earth-related or adjoining.
Generative Engine Optimization shall be competing in opposition to that established which means perpetually. It gained’t matter what number of weblog posts declare that “GEO is the brand new web optimization” – the search outcomes for “geo” will belong to geography, not generative optimization.
Then we will look past Google’s index – the coaching information behind giant language fashions (LLMs) already “is aware of” that geo refers to Earth and geography, as a result of that’s what the phrase has meant in each corpus of textual content for hundreds of years. The concept that we will overwrite that which means in just a few quarters of (AI-generated) weblog posts and convention talks is, frankly, wishful considering.
Acronym Soup: Why Hijacking Fails
This isn’t the primary time individuals have tried to coin a buzzword by hijacking an acronym. It by no means works. Acronyms solely stick when they’re:
- Distinctive (no heavy pre-existing baggage).
- Clear (individuals know, or can simply surmise, what they stand for).
- Pronounceable (individuals can simply say them in dialog).
Once they aren’t, they dissolve into acronym soup. Everybody will get confused, no one adopts the time period constantly, and the concept dies.
Humor Break: Acronyms We Can Safely Reject Now
Since I’m certain there shall be a scramble to give you one thing “higher” than GEO, let me prevent the difficulty and pre-remove just a few tempting, however alas already in use, choices from the checklist.
- FBI – For Higher Indexing (all of your queries are below surveillance).
- PDF – Immediate-Pushed Framework (optimized for shoppers who by no means open them).
- BIO – Bot Interplay Optimization (as a result of the LLMs must “like” you).
- CEO – Crawl Effectivity Orchestration (handle your bots like a boss).
- URL – Unified Retrieval Layer (rating begins on the root).
- GPS – Generative Immediate Sequencing (your AI nonetheless wants instructions).
- API – Automated Immediate Injection (although to be honest, my mind at all times defaults to “armor piercing incendiaries” however that’s most likely only a me drawback).
- HTML – Human-Tuned Mannequin Language (educate the bots to “communicate search”).
- INFO – Clever Neural Findability Optimization (make your content material “discoverable” to AI).
- PRO – Immediate Response Optimization (win the reply field in AI).
- EV – Enhanced Visibility (as a result of apparently that’s the entire level).
- web optimization – Artificial Engine Optimization (sure, we’ve come full circle).
They’re humorous, however none of them ought to occur for the entire causes outlined above.
What Really Works When Naming Ideas
So, if GEO is a misplaced trigger, what ought to we be doing as a substitute?
1. Begin Distinctive
- Don’t hijack a phrase or acronym already in heavy use.
- The cleanest acronyms are invented, not repurposed.
2. Make It Pronounceable
- web optimization works as a result of individuals can say it.
- SaaS (Software program as a Service) works as a result of it’s quick and phonetically simple (“sass” in case you didn’t know).
3. Anchor It In Authority
- Google’s personal acronyms, like E-E-A-T (Expertise, Experience, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness), caught as a result of Google itself enforced them.
- A group can rally round a time period, however provided that it feels backed by authority or usefulness.
4. Test The SERPs First
- Earlier than you attempt to coin an acronym, search it.
- If the primary three pages of outcomes are about one thing else fully, you is perhaps sunk earlier than you start.
The Backside Line: Cease Making an attempt To Make GEO Occur
Generative Engine Optimization as a idea is smart, however GEO as an acronym is doomed.
It fails linguistically (no one will say “G-E-O”), traditionally (the phrase is historic and already claimed), and strategically (search engines like google and yahoo and LLMs already affiliate “geo” with geography, not generative search).
If you need a brand new time period to catch on, begin with one which isn’t already taken. In any other case, you’re not innovating language – you’re simply creating acronym soup … and sabotaging your personal visibility from day one.
So please, cease making an attempt to make GEO occur. It’s not going to occur.
Extra Assets:
Featured Picture: CHIEW/Shutterstock
