Short answer: SEO gets your site ranked on a results page. GEO gets the AI that answers instead of searching — ChatGPT, Gemini, Google AI Overviews — to know your brand well enough to name it. Both rest on clear content and machine-readable structure, but GEO is about the brand’s identity more than its keywords.
Why a good ranking doesn’t make AI mention you
AI does not read the first page of Google and summarise it. It composes answers from what it understands a brand to be: who, what, where and how trustworthy. If that information is scattered, contradictory or only in images, the model will not risk naming you.
What GEO work involves
- Clear entities — name, business type, location and services consistent everywhere they appear
- Machine-readable data — schema.org, hreflang, sitemap, and pages that answer one question each
- Trust signals — licences, awards and history that can be verified
- Repeat checks over time — a log of what was asked, when, on which platform, and what came back
Limits worth knowing
GEO is not paying an AI to mention you, and results are not instant. Measurement must be a real log with dates, questions and platforms — not a score without a source.