Glossary · Traffic · also GEO, LLM SEO
What is generative engine optimisation (GEO)?
Generative engine optimisation (GEO) is the practice of structuring content and data so that AI assistants cite and recommend a source in their generated answers. It overlaps with SEO, since both need crawlable, well-structured pages, but the unit of success differs: SEO competes for a ranked link, GEO competes to be the passage quoted inside an answer.
- Reviewed 6 October 2026
In more detail
The practical consequences are specific. Answers are assembled from passages, so a page must answer its question directly and early rather than building to a conclusion. Structured data matters more, because typed facts are easier to lift than inferred ones. Comparison and definition pages matter disproportionately, because those are the question shapes people bring to assistants.
For ecommerce there is a second, more literal application: product structured data decides whether an assistant can state your price, availability and variants correctly when someone asks it to find a product like yours.
Key points
- Competes for the quoted passage, not the ranked link.
- Answer-first structure beats build-to-a-conclusion structure.
- Structured data and comparison or definition pages carry extra weight.
- For stores, product JSON-LD decides whether assistants can quote you correctly.
Related terms
Guides that go deeper
Last reviewed against the product on 6 October 2026.
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