By Thanaphat Thinakul · CEO, IMAI Group
What is the difference between GEO and SEO? SEO optimises your pages to rank in a search engine's list of results. GEO optimises your brand's chance of being included and named inside an AI-generated answer. The two overlap heavily, because assistants like ChatGPT and Google's AI Overviews retrieve web pages before they write. But they reward different things and need to be measured differently. This guide sets out what stays the same, what changes when your buyers ask ChatGPT instead of typing into Google, and how to split your effort.
What stays the same
- You have to be retrievable. Google says AI Overviews and AI Mode use its normal index, and a page only needs to be indexed and snippet-eligible to be considered, with no special optimisation required (Google Search Central). ChatGPT search relies on OpenAI's crawler (OAI-SearchBot) plus third-party search providers (OpenAI). If crawlers can't reach a page, or it isn't indexed, no answer engine will use it.
- Helpful, specific content still wins. Pages that answer a real question clearly are the ones both rankings and answers draw from.
- Technical hygiene still matters. Speed, clean HTML, sensible internal links and no duplicate pages competing for the same query.
What changes when buyers ask ChatGPT
| — | SEO | GEO |
|---|---|---|
| Unit of success | A ranking and a click | A mention or recommendation inside an answer |
| Query shape | Short keywords | Long, conditional questions ("…in Singapore, under S$5k, for a 20-person team") |
| Strongest signals | Relevance, links, page quality | Consistent brand facts and what third-party sites say about you |
| Where you need to appear | Your own pages | Your pages and the reviews, directories, articles and videos the engine reads |
| Measurement | Rank tracking, Search Console | Asking the engines repeatedly and logging who gets named |
1. Mentions beat links
Ahrefs analysed 75,000 brands and found branded web mentions correlated with AI Overview visibility at 0.664, versus 0.218 for backlinks. A follow-up covering ChatGPT and AI Mode found YouTube mentions had the strongest correlation of anything measured (Ahrefs; Ahrefs follow-up). Correlation isn't causation, but the direction is consistent: brands that are talked about get named. For many service businesses this means reviews, industry directories, comparison articles, podcasts and videos matter more than another round of link building.
2. Content needs evidence, not just keywords
In the GEO paper from Princeton and collaborators (KDD 2024), adding statistics, quotations from credible sources and citations raised a source's visibility in generative answers by up to about 40%, while keyword stuffing performed poorly (arXiv 2311.09735). Write so that a sentence can be lifted and still be accurate: concrete numbers with sources, clear definitions, explicit scope.
3. Clicks shrink, but the ones you get are worth more
In the first four months of 2026, 68% of U.S. Google searches ended without a click, according to Similarweb data published by SparkToro (SparkToro). Meanwhile Semrush estimates visitors from AI search are 4.4 times as valuable as traditional organic visitors by conversion rate (Semrush). Report on visibility and leads, not traffic alone.
4. Measurement becomes statistical
A ranking is fairly stable from one day to the next. An AI answer isn't: the same question asked minutes apart can name different companies. Treat any single screenshot, good or bad, as one sample. Track a fixed set of buyer questions across several engines, repeat the runs, and watch the share of answers that name you over time. That share is the KPI we use with every client.
What doesn't matter as much as people claim
llms.txt. Google's John Mueller has said no AI system currently uses it, and we've seen no evidence that any major engine uses it to choose sources. It's harmless to publish, but it isn't a lever. "AI schema". Google says no special markup is required for AI features. Standard structured data is still useful for keeping facts unambiguous. Guaranteed AI rankings. No vendor controls these. Ask anyone who promises one to show the questions, dates and answer text behind the claim.
How to split the effort
- Fix retrieval. Check that your key pages are indexed and that you aren't blocking OAI-SearchBot, PerplexityBot, Claude's search crawler or Googlebot.
- Publish one answer-first page per buyer question on your own domain, with sourced facts and an FAQ. See our AEO services for how we approach this.
- Make your company facts consistent across your site, Google Business Profile, LinkedIn and directories.
- Earn mentions where the engines look. Ask the engines your buyers' questions, note which sites they cite, and work on appearing there honestly.
- Measure weekly and change the plan based on which questions move.
Where ImVisible fits
ImVisible is an SEO, AEO and GEO service run by IMAI Group in Bangkok, led by CEO Thanaphat Thinakul. We serve Singapore and Southeast Asia remotely, in English. We don't have a local office or Singapore case studies yet, and we say so up front. What we offer is the loop above, run every week, with measurement across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude and Google AI Overviews. Read how our GEO programme for Singapore and SEA works, or start with the free AI-visibility check.
FAQ
Is GEO replacing SEO?
No. GEO depends on SEO, because answer engines retrieve indexed pages. GEO adds work on brand facts, third-party mentions and a different way of measuring.
Is GEO the same as AEO?
They overlap. AEO usually means getting your page used as the source of an answer. GEO usually means getting your brand named in generative answers. In practice we run them together.
How long does GEO take?
Indexing and source citations can move within weeks. Being named for broad "best provider" questions usually takes months, because it depends on what other sites say about you.
Can a small company compete with big brands in AI answers?
For specific questions, yes. Assistants answer long, conditional questions where a focused specialist with clear facts and genuine third-party mentions can be the best match, even against larger competitors.
Sources
- Google Search Central, "AI features and your website" — developers.google.com
- OpenAI, "Overview of OpenAI Crawlers" — platform.openai.com
- Ahrefs, "An Analysis of AI Overview Brand Visibility Factors (75K Brands Studied)" and follow-up — ahrefs.com
- Aggarwal et al., "GEO: Generative Engine Optimization", KDD 2024 — arxiv.org
- SparkToro, "When Google Stops Sending Clicks, What Still Works?" (June 2026) — sparktoro.com
- Semrush, "We Studied the Impact of AI Search on SEO Traffic" — semrush.com