In 30 seconds, right here’s what it’s good to know concerning the variations between search engine marketing and GEO:
- search engine marketing (Search Engine Optimization): Getting your web site to indicate up in Google searches. Purpose: Get individuals to click on your hyperlink.
- GEO (Generative Engine Optimization): Getting AI chatbots like ChatGPT to say your model or data. Purpose: Get AI to cite and point out you.
- Major variations: search engine marketing brings guests to your web site. GEO places your model or content material instantly in AI solutions (no click on wanted). search engine marketing brings high-volume site visitors that explores your website. GEO will deliver much less site visitors to your website instantly, however these guests could also be extra prone to convert.
- What to do: Begin with good search engine marketing (it’s nonetheless important), then add GEO ways like together with extra unique knowledge, holding your most necessary content material up-to-date, or getting your model talked about extra throughout the internet.
- Backside line: You want each. Consider search engine marketing as your basis and GEO as future-proofing your on-line presence.
Need the total story? Learn on.
As you in all probability already know, Search Engine Optimization (search engine marketing) is the observe of enhancing your web site so it seems increased in Google, Bing, or different search engine outcomes when individuals seek for subjects associated to your small business.
The objective: get individuals to click on in your hyperlink within the SERPs and go to your web site.
How search engines like google work
Engines like google work in three essential steps:
- Crawling. Packages referred to as internet crawlers (or spiders) browse the web, following hyperlinks and accumulating webpages.
- Indexing. The collected pages are analyzed and saved in an enormous database referred to as the search index.
- Rating. Whenever you sort in a search, the engine appears to be like by means of the index and makes use of an algorithm to type the outcomes, displaying essentially the most related pages first.
In brief, if you seek for one thing, the search engine scans its index for matches, ranks them by relevance, after which exhibits you the most effective outcomes on the search engine outcomes web page (SERP). AI search works otherwise—extra on that in a bit.
Key search engine marketing methods
In observe, search engine marketing is about utilizing the best key phrases, creating useful content material, incomes trusted hyperlinks, and ensuring your website is quick, secure, and straightforward to make use of. Listed here are the core methods:
- Key phrases analysis: Discovering and utilizing the phrases and phrases your clients really seek for.
- On-page search engine marketing: Creating useful, detailed data that solutions search intent.
- Off-page search engine marketing: Getting different respected web sites to hyperlink to yours.
- Technical search engine marketing: Making your website free from vital search engine marketing errors. Largely: making your website straightforward for search engines like google to crawl, secure for customers, easy to navigate, quick to load, and mobile-friendly.
GEO, quick for Generative Engine Optimization (also called AEO or LLMO), is the method of getting your model talked about, cited, and precisely represented in AI-generated solutions. That features outcomes from AI assistants like ChatGPT, Google’s AI Overviews, and Google’s AI Mode.
In different phrases, GEO is search engine marketing for AI search.
How AI search works
With ChatGPT, the way in which it responds depends upon whether or not it makes use of internet searching (additionally referred to as grounding) to seek out the reply:
- No searching: It generates solutions from patterns it discovered throughout coaching. It doesn’t pull from a reside product database, simply from its frozen information (as much as August 2023).
- With searching: It searches the net, picks helpful pages, and summarizes them so the reply is predicated on recent data.
Key GEO ways
All of those are coated intimately in our GEO information, however right here’s the fast model:
- Third-party mentions: Get your model talked about throughout business websites, “better of” lists, and overview platforms (most AI citations come from different websites, not yours).
- AI-preferred content material: Create how-to guides, comparability pages (“X vs Y”), knowledge research, and “better of” lists – these get the best AI site visitors.
- Info and statistics: Embody particular, verifiable numbers and knowledge that AI can confidently cite.
- Multi-platform presence: Construct visibility on YouTube (2nd most cited by AI Overviews) and Reddit (third most cited).
- Structured Info: Use clear headings, Q&A codecs, bullet factors, and schema markup for machine readability.
- Recent content material: Maintain data up to date frequently – AI prefers citing newer content material over older pages.
The important thing distinction between search engine marketing and GEO comes from how the search expertise works. With AI solutions, customers don’t have to click on hyperlinks as typically, however once they do, it’s normally as a result of they need a deeper understanding or are able to attempt the product the AI really useful. That in flip creates a unique set of metrics to observe.
In search engine marketing, your web site seems as a hyperlink in search outcomes.
In GEO, your data or model seems instantly contained in the AI’s reply.
If hyperlinks seem in AI-generated solutions, they’re far much less seen (and redundant from the angle of customers who needed a fast reply). In AI Overviews, they’ll seem contextually with a small hyperlink icon subsequent to a time period, on the right-hand panel, or on the very backside.
In search engine marketing, the person journey sometimes appears to be like like this: they seek for one thing, see your hyperlink, click on to your web site, and skim your content material.
In GEO, the journey is completely different: the person asks a query, the AI supplies a solution utilizing your data, and the person might by no means go to your website in any respect, at the least indirectly from the AI reply (that is referred to as a ‘zero-click’ search).
PEW Analysis Heart just lately studied how searches work together with Google’s AI Overviews, proving the “zero click on” phenomenon.
They discovered that customers click on on search outcomes solely 8% of the time when AI summaries seem vs 15% with out them – that’s practically 50% fewer clicks. Only one% of customers click on on sources cited within the AI abstract itself. What’s extra, 26% of customers finish their session utterly after seeing an AI abstract (vs 16% for conventional search).
Success in search engine marketing is measured with metrics like key phrase rankings, backlinks, natural site visitors, and natural share of voice. That is a part of the “click on economics,” as a result of your outcomes depend upon convincing individuals to click on by means of to your website.
Against this, success in GEO is measured with metrics like model mentions in AI solutions, citations when your content material is referenced, AI referral site visitors, and AI share of voice. That is “visibility economics,” the place the extra typically your model seems in AI responses, the extra seemingly customers are to belief and select you, even when they by no means click on.
Right here’s what a GEO dashboard appears to be like like, a screenshot from Ahrefs’ Model Radar. The core distinction is that there are not any key phrase rankings. As a substitute, you see how widespread a model is inside a selected AI’s responses, and the way that recognition modifications over time.
One other key distinction is the place mentions come from. In search engine marketing, your personal website is the first asset—you optimize your pages to rank as hyperlinks in search outcomes. In GEO, nevertheless, most model mentions in AI responses originate from third‑occasion websites moderately than your personal area. For that reason, GEO might change into a extra interdisciplinary effort than search engine marketing (requiring, for instance, PR and influencer advertising and marketing).
Business rankings, “better of” lists, overview platforms, PR protection, and buyer case research typically dominate as the highest sources AI assistants depend on. For instance, in Google’s AI Overviews, the highest pages mentioning Ahrefs didn’t embrace ahrefs.com at all.
These mentions don’t even should be linked. AI can choose up unlinked references simply as simply. This makes broad visibility throughout the net extra necessary than ever.
To search out websites that always seem in AI solutions, simply plug their area in Ahrefs’ Website Explorer and have a look at the AI quotation depend within the Overview report:
Visitors from AI search appears to be like completely different from conventional natural search. Guests from AI are likely to view fewer pages (4 vs. 5.2) however spend barely extra time on them (86s vs. 78s). In addition they have a better bounce charge (67.8% vs. 63.7%), suggesting they arrive with a transparent, particular objective (supply).
AI search additionally drives customers to homepages, product pages, and instruments extra typically than natural search, whereas natural search brings extra site visitors to worldwide pages.
Most significantly, AI site visitors can convert at a a lot increased charge. Within the case of Ahrefs, it was 23x greater than natural search; regardless of being simply 0.5% of site visitors, it generates over 12% of signups.
That stated, conversion charges will differ by website. As this current examine from Amsive exhibits, not each web site sees the identical uplift from LLM-driven site visitors.
Regardless of their variations, search engine marketing and GEO share necessary frequent floor primarily based on content material high quality and model authority.
Each search engine marketing and GEO depend upon having helpful content material, which builds topical authority. On the finish of the day, search engines like google and AI instruments are designed to deliver individuals the data they’re on the lookout for. The important thing distinction is in how the reply is delivered: search engines like google level you to hyperlinks, whereas AI typically offers you the reply instantly.
Working example, Ahrefs’ content material and product pages had been talked about 7,470 instances throughout 2,309 pages with none particular effort to optimize for AI. That’s as a result of new search applied sciences nonetheless depend on the identical basis: high quality, helpful content material.
Each methods give attention to understanding what individuals are actually on the lookout for and offering the most effective reply (the search intent).
Whether or not somebody searches Google for “finest mission administration software program” or asks ChatGPT one thing extra particular like “What’s the most effective mission administration instrument for a staff of 30 beneath $50?”, the intent doesn’t change. They’re on the lookout for the highest choices, the explanations behind these suggestions, and a transparent comparability to assist them resolve.
Tip
Use Ahrefs’ AI Content material Helper to take the guesswork out of content material planning. Discover the principle subjects (not simply key phrases) to your key phrase by analyzing top-ranking pages. As you write, see your content material rated in actual time and modify immediately.
Create new articles or replace previous ones with ease. When search outcomes combine completely different intents, merely choose the intent you need to optimize for and let the instrument information you.
Google Search and AI assistants each depend on exterior content material; they don’t generate solutions out of skinny air. Which means they face the identical problem: deciding which sources to belief. That is the place your status as an knowledgeable turns into beneficial for each search engine marketing and GEO.
Similar to in conventional search engine marketing, model authority is a significant component in GEO. Branded mentions throughout the net present a powerful connection to visibility in AI Overviews (correlation of 0.664). Moreover, manufacturers within the high 25% for internet mentions earn over 10x extra AI Overview placements than the subsequent tier down.
And that’s not simply true for AI Overviews. AI Assistants additionally lean closely on well-known sources. The principle distinction is that they have an inclination to quote a barely completely different set of websites.
Merely put, the extra individuals discuss your model on-line, the extra seemingly AI is to function you.
Engines like google and AI assistants nonetheless depend on crawlers to fetch and course of pages. AI struggles with heavy JavaScript, however it sometimes respects robots.txt guidelines. If they’ll’t entry or interpret your content material accurately, neither search engine marketing nor GEO will work.
Tip
Maintain your website in good search engine marketing well being with Ahrefs’ Website Audit. It displays your website on autopilot for over 170 search engine marketing points, displaying the place precisely they occur and suggesting find out how to repair them. Free in Ahrefs Webmaster Instruments.
Consider search engine marketing as your basis and GEO because the improve. You want search engine marketing first as a result of it’s established, drives most internet site visitors, and supplies the bottom that AI techniques typically be taught from.
However GEO issues too, as a result of AI search is rising, and the “zero-click” development is accelerating as extra AI Overviews roll out. What’s extra, Adobe’s current examine discovered that three in 10 U.S. respondents belief ChatGPT greater than different search engines like google, and 36% of the individuals surveyed found a brand new product or model by means of ChatGPT.
For those who’re curious concerning the international site visitors shift, try our AI vs. Search Visitors Evaluation dashboard, which pulls knowledge from over 50,000 websites. As an illustration, from January to August 2025, Google held a 41.13% site visitors share, whereas ChatGPT accounted for 0.21%.
| Facet | search engine marketing (Search Engine Optimization) | GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) |
|---|---|---|
| Purpose | Get clicks to your web site | Get AI to say your model/content material |
| The place you seem | Blue hyperlinks in search outcomes | Inside AI-generated solutions |
| Main point out supply | Your individual web site pages and content material | Third-party websites (business lists, evaluations, PR protection) |
| Consumer journey | Search → Click on hyperlink → Go to website | Ask → Learn AI abstract → Might by no means go to website |
| Visitors quantity | Excessive | Low |
| Conversion high quality | Customary charges | Will be a lot increased (23x increased in case of ahrefs.com) |
| Customer conduct | Extra pages considered, shorter time | Fewer pages, longer time, clearer intent |
| Success metrics | Rankings, backlinks, natural site visitors, share of voice | Mentions, citations, AI referral site visitors, AI share of voice |
| Belief indicators | Backlinks from respected websites, EEAT | Unlinked mentions, model authority, multi-platform presence |
| Basis | Important start line | Constructed on high of search engine marketing; future-proofing |
| Shared rules | High quality content material, belief/authority, intent focus, robust technical basis | Identical — GEO builds on search engine marketing |
Closing ideas
Frightened you’re falling behind? Don’t panic. search engine marketing dies yearly and lives without end. The identical qualities that make content material robust for search engine marketing additionally work for GEO. By including GEO methods to your search engine marketing efforts and keeping track of your AI visibility, you’ll be well-positioned for at the moment and ready for what’s subsequent.
Bought questions or feedback? Let me know on LinkedIn.
