Generative engine optimization services: a site AI answers can find, read and cite

What are generative engine optimization services?

Generative engine optimization (GEO) is search work aimed at the answers AI tools write, in Google’s AI Overviews and AI Mode, ChatGPT search and Perplexity. Those tools look pages up before they answer, then link some of the pages they used. GEO makes a business easier for AI answers to find, read and cite, and generative engine optimization services are that work done for you each month. An AI SEO agency may sell the same work as AI SEO or AI search optimization.

The term comes from a 2023 research paper by Pranjal Aggarwal and colleagues. On its own benchmark, changes to how content was written raised its visibility in AI-written answers by up to 40%, and what worked varied by subject. It is one lab test, and says little about any single site.

Google’s guide to its generative AI features says they rest on its core ranking and quality systems, and that from Google’s side, work aimed at them is still SEO. We agree, so we run GEO as a layer on our monthly SEO work.

Does GEO matter for your business?

When we checked 155 head searches for websites, SEO and GEO, business software and AI on October 30, 2026, using Ahrefs’ US data, Google showed an AI Overview on 131 of them. In the AI Overview citations we pulled for 62 buyer searches, 407 links pointed to 231 different sites, and 185 of those sites were cited once. No single agency owns these answers.

Google says it shows an AI Overview only where its systems judge that it adds something to the classic results, so many searches don’t get one. Some searches made by buyers ready to hire, such as “local seo services” and “web design agency”, showed no AI Overview citations in our check.

So GEO matters most where buyers research with questions before they hire: what a service costs, how it works, which kind to choose. If your work comes through referrals, or your buyers don’t research with AI tools, it can wait, and we’ll tell you so.

What does good GEO work look like?

Good GEO work covers these:

• The crawlers get in: robots.txt and any CDN or hosting rules let Googlebot, OAI-SearchBot and PerplexityBot reach the site, and Search Console’s Search generative AI control stays on include, its default since it reached every site on August 31, 2026. OpenAI’s crawler settings are independent, so a site can stay open to ChatGPT search and still refuse GPTBot, its training crawler.
• Each page answers in text: the answer to its question sits in plain text near the top, where a tool can quote it.
• The facts agree: your name, services and service areas read the same on the site, on your Business Profile and in the directories that list you. Google says Business Profile and Merchant Center details can help a business show up in AI responses.
• The pages say something of their own: Google asks for non-commodity content with a point of view, and gives a first-hand review as its example. Its spam policies class many pages made with AI tools, with no value added for readers, as scaled content abuse.
• Mentions are earned: Google’s AI features can show what’s said about products and services across the web. Google also says chasing inauthentic mentions isn’t as helpful as it might seem, and its spam policies count paying for links as link spam.
• It’s measured the same way each month: a fixed set of buyer questions asked in AI tools every month and scored as an appearance rate, beside Search Console’s Generative AI performance report.

Most of this is SEO done well, and an agency that says so is being straight with you.

What should you ask an AI SEO agency before you hire one?

Google’s hiring guide, Do you need an SEO?, lists generative AI work among the services an SEO may offer, and suggests asking whether an agency’s AEO or GEO advice matches Google’s guidance. Ask every agency the same things:

• What would you do that SEO doesn’t? Much of GEO is SEO, so a straight answer names the extra steps, such as reading the AI answers themselves.
• Which AI tools and questions do you track? The list should stay fixed, so the months compare.
• What will the monthly report show? Ask to see one, and check that it reports AI answers as a rate across many questions.
• Where does each recommendation come from? Google suggests asking whether an SEO cites official documentation. Advice to add llms.txt for Google’s sake runs against Google’s guide, which says Google Search ignores the file.
• What happens on other sites? Ask how they earn mentions and links, and whether any of them are paid for.

Google is plain about rankings: “No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google.” The same goes for AI answers. No agency controls what an AI tool writes, so a promise of a place in one is worth little. Our guide on how to rank in ChatGPT covers what is in your control.

Which kind of GEO work do you need?

Pick the row that sounds like your business, then read the page it points to.

Where two rows fit, we’ll settle the order on the 15-minute call. Our guide to GEO vs SEO sets AEO, GEO and SEO side by side.

How does GEO work run with us?

It starts with a 15-minute call with Nicolas Perez or Noah Alvarez, our co-founders, about how your buyers find you now. If GEO fits, we write a proposal that names the monthly work and what it costs, and nothing begins until you approve it.

GEO runs on top of our monthly SEO work, on a site built in our own system. If we didn’t build yours, we rebuild it there first, with its old addresses redirected to the new pages. Sites we build let AI crawlers in by name and carry structured data and an llms.txt file, and this site is set up the same way. Each month the work covers:

• Repairs to the site: titles and descriptions, structured data, re-indexing requests and merging posts that overlap.
• New pages and links: service or job pages with markup, articles each month, location pages where search demand and local proof back them, earned links, and monthly tracking of the AI answers that mention you.
• Checks all year: the site checked every week and its links every month, a one-page report on the last day of each month with leads first, and a review each quarter.

We don’t promise that an AI tool will name you, or promise rankings or traffic. We never buy links. If GEO isn’t your right next step, we’ll say so on the call.

From our office in Valencia, we work remotely with businesses across the US. To find out whether GEO is worth doing for your business yet, book a 15-minute call.