“Generative Engine Optimization” is not a new discipline you bolt on. It’s SEO, aimed at AI answers. The signals that win there are the ones SEO has always built: authority, structure, citations, and brand mentions.
You don’t have to take our word for it. Google’s own documentation states, plainly, that optimizing for its generative AI features “is still SEO,” and that there’s no special markup, file, or schema you need to add. The AI features run on the same core ranking systems that have always decided who shows up.
There’s one honest caveat we’ll get to: standalone chatbots like ChatGPT and Perplexity pick their sources a bit differently than Google ranks them. But the foundation is the same, and the panic that “SEO is dead” gets the story exactly backwards.
AI answers are mostly assembled from pages that already rank.
When Ahrefs analyzed 1.9 million AI Overview citations, 76% of them came from pages already ranking in Google’s organic top 10. The median position of a cited page was number two.
That’s the whole GEO-is-SEO argument in one number. The fastest, most reliable way to get cited in an AI answer is still to rank for the query. The on-ramp to the AI surface is organic search.
The best practices for SEO continue to be relevant because our generative AI features on Google Search are rooted in our core Search ranking and quality systems. From Google Search’s perspective, optimizing for generative AI search is optimizing for the search experience, and thus still SEO.
Google Search Central (official documentation)
AI Overview citations that also rank in Google’s top 10
Google didn’t collapse when AI arrived. It got bigger.
The “SEO is dead” narrative assumes AI is draining search. The data says otherwise. In 2024, Google received roughly 373 times more searches than ChatGPT, and Google still sends about 190 times more traffic to websites than ChatGPT does.
Traditional search usage has barely moved: down less than 1% over two and a half years, even as AI adoption climbed. AI is additive, not substitutive. The smart move isn’t to abandon SEO for GEO. It’s to do the SEO that feeds both.
The scale gap, by the numbers
What wins AI citations is brand authority, not backlinks.
When Ahrefs correlated 75,000 brands against AI Overview visibility, the strongest single predictor wasn’t raw backlinks. It was branded web mentions, the digital-PR signal: how often the open web talks about you by name.
That is squarely SEO and digital-PR work. There’s no secret “GEO setting.” You earn AI visibility the same way you earn rankings: become a brand the web cites and trusts.
What predicts an AI citation: brand, not backlinks
People didn’t stop searching. They added AI on top.
About 95% of Americans still use traditional search every month, a number that has dropped less than one percent over two and a half years. Monthly AI-tool use is around 38% and climbing, but it’s growing alongside search, not in place of it.
This is why “replace your SEO with GEO” is bad advice. Your customers are using both. Show up in both. The work that gets you into AI answers is the same work that keeps you ranking.
Traditional search vs AI tools, monthly use
Standalone chatbots are where “GEO equals SEO” loosens.
Here’s the part we won’t hide. When Ahrefs looked at 15,000 prompts across ChatGPT, Gemini, and Copilot, only 12% of the URLs those tools cited also ranked in Google’s top 10. Outside Google’s own AI, ranking matters far less to whether you get quoted.
So “GEO is just SEO” holds tightest for Google’s AI Overviews, and loosens for the standalone chatbots, which weigh mentions, freshness, and structure in their own way. That’s the real reason to treat AI visibility as its own layer on top of SEO, not a reason to think it’s a separate discipline.
How often a chatbot-cited page also ranks in Google’s top 10
You don’t need to create new machine readable files, AI text files, markup, or Markdown to appear in Google Search, including its generative AI capabilities. Structured data isn’t required for generative AI search, and there’s no special schema.org markup you need to add.
Google Search Central (official documentation)
Zero-click organic search is a branding opportunity. Stop thinking of SEO as your only hammer and Google rankings your only nail. The world is bigger, and your tactics are eminently portable.
Rand Fishkin, co-founder of SparkToro
Lead with GEO, fix SEO first, or both? Take 30 seconds.
A few taps. You’ll get a straight answer on where to put the next dollar, knowing it’s one foundation either way.
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We build the SEO that makes you the answer, everywhere.
GEO isn’t a separate line item for us. The authority, structure, and brand mentions that rank you on Google are the same ones that get you cited in AI Overviews and quoted in ChatGPT. We build that foundation once, then optimize it across every surface your buyers use.
Frequently asked
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Every figure on this page comes from a primary platform, an independent study, or a named industry expert. No competing-agency stats, no made-up numbers.
- Google Search Central: optimizing for generative AI features
- Google: Alphabet Q1 2025 earnings (1.5B AI Overview users)
- Ahrefs: how to rank in AI Overviews (76% in top 10, median position 2)
- Ahrefs: AI Overview brand correlation (75,000 brands)
- Ahrefs: only 12% of AI-cited URLs rank in Google’s top 10
- SparkToro: Google receives 373x more searches than ChatGPT
- SparkToro: AI tools grow while traditional search holds flat
- Pew Research Center: clicks when an AI summary appears
