Direct Answer
Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is the practice of structuring a website so AI engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and Google AI Overviews cite it as a source. It overlaps with SEO but adds direct-answer formatting in the first 60 words, llms.txt files, schema markup on every entity, and explicit AI-crawler access.
Voice answer (≤30 words)
“Generative Engine Optimization is structuring a website so AI engines cite it. It overlaps with SEO but adds direct answers, llms.txt, and schema.”
GEO matters because AI search now resolves a meaningful share of buyer-research queries inside the chat — the cited brands win the trust and the downstream conversion.
Core GEO tactics: 40–60 word direct answer at the top of every page, FAQPage / Article / DefinedTerm schema, llms.txt, and allowing GPTBot / PerplexityBot / ClaudeBot in robots.txt.