Generative engine optimization, or GEO, is the practice of making a page more likely to be quoted inside an AI-generated answer rather than ranked in a list of links. The term comes from a 2024 KDD paper that tested which specific content changes actually moved a source's visibility.
What GEO asks you to change
GEO asks for three changes, and they are the three the original paper measured: cite your sources, add quotations from named people, and carry specific statistics. Aggarwal and co-authors built a 10,000-query benchmark and reported those as the strongest methods, lifting visibility roughly 30 to 40 percent on their position-adjusted word count metric.
What GEO does not ask for is a separate technical stack. Google's guide to optimizing for generative AI features says it in one line: "From Google Search's perspective, optimizing for generative AI search is optimizing for the search experience, and thus still SEO." As of September 2026 that same guide says Search ignores llms.txt files and needs no special schema.
What it looks like when it runs
Running GEO looks like evidence discipline, not a new channel: every number on a page traced to a named source, a real attributed quotation where one exists, and the answer to the page's question inside the first hundred words. Mirastart builds that into the content system, next to the booking, missed-call, follow-up and reporting systems that run for Charlotte businesses.
Sources
- Google Search Central, "Optimizing your website for generative AI features on Google Search" - Last updated July 2026. Source of the quoted line that optimizing for generative AI search is still SEO, and of the statements that Google Search ignores llms.txt files and requires no special schema. The guide speaks only for Google Search.
- Google Search Central, "AI features and your website" - Google's statement that there are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, and that AI-feature traffic is reported in Search Console's Performance report under the "Web" search type.
- Aggarwal et al., "GEO: Generative Engine Optimization" (KDD 2024) - The paper that coined the term. Introduces GEO-bench, a 10,000-query benchmark, and reports that its strongest methods, citing sources and adding quotations and statistics, improved visibility by roughly 30 to 40 percent on a position-adjusted word count metric.