GEO vs SEO: what's really different (and what Google says isn't)
Short answer: GEO vs SEO is mostly a difference of labels and of what you measure, not of the technical basis. For its AI features, Google writes that there are "no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode" and that no other special optimizations are necessary. What really differs is the work around the basics: you decide about more bots, and mentions in other assistants' answers need separate tracking.
The Google pages we quote below were read on 4 November 2026. Where a sentence is our reading and not Google's, we say so.
GEO vs SEO: what do the labels mean?
SEO is search engine optimization: making pages findable in search engines. The newer labels are usually spelled out as GEO (generative engine optimization), AEO (answer engine optimization) and LLMO (large language model optimization). They share one hope: to appear in answers that an AI system writes, not only in a list of links.
These are words people search for, not standards. On 4 November 2026 we asked Google's public autocomplete endpoint for "geo vs seo". Among its suggestions were "geo vs seo vs aeo", "geo vs seo meaning" and "geo vs seo what's the difference". "llmo seo" returned "llmo vs seo" and "llmo meaning in seo". Such a list shows what people type, not how many people type it.
We found no official definition. Google's page on AI features contains none of these words: we searched its text for GEO, AEO, LLMO, "generative engine" and "answer engine" and got no hit. The bot documentation of OpenAI, Anthropic and Perplexity does not use them either. So we treat the labels as keywords people search, not as methods with an effect of their own.
What does Google say stays the same?
Google describes AI Overviews and AI Mode on one page, AI features and your website (last updated 2025-12-10). It opens with the point of this article: the best practices for SEO remain relevant for these features. The details:
| Question | What the page says |
|---|---|
| Is there an extra requirement? | "There are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, nor other special optimizations necessary." |
| Which technical conditions apply? | A page must be indexed and eligible to be shown in Google Search with a snippet. "There are no additional technical requirements." |
| Do I need new files or markup? | "You don't need to create new machine readable files, AI text files, or markup to appear in these features." There is also no special schema.org structured data to add. |
| Which basics does it name? | Crawling allowed in robots.txt and by any CDN or hosting infrastructure, content findable through internal links, a great page experience, important content as text, structured data that matches the visible text. |
| Is appearing guaranteed? | "Indexing and serving isn't guaranteed." |
Two limits. First, the statement covers the AI features of Google Search only. It says nothing about ChatGPT, Claude or Perplexity. Second, it does not call content irrelevant: among the basics it names helpful, reliable, people-first content and following the Search policies.
Google also says both features may use a "query fan-out" technique, issuing several related searches across subtopics to build a response. It lists this under how the features work, not under things you must do. How sites that appear are counted is just as plain: within the overall search traffic in Search Console, in the Performance report under the "Web" search type.
For the full walk-through of that page, see How to get into Google AI Overviews and AI Mode.
What is really different?
Three things differ in practice. None changes the technical basis for Google's AI features, but they change the work.
- More doors to decide about. Google writes that AI is built into Search, which is why robots.txt rules for Googlebot are the control over how your site is crawled for Search. To limit what is shown, it names
nosnippet,data-nosnippet,max-snippetandnoindex. A separate token, Google-Extended, covers training future Gemini models and grounding in Gemini Apps and Vertex AI, and per Google's crawler list it does not impact a site's inclusion in Google Search. Other providers split their bots by purpose. OpenAI has OAI-SearchBot for ChatGPT search and GPTBot for training: "Each setting is independent of the others." Anthropic describes three robots, and Perplexity has PerplexityBot for search results and Perplexity-User for user actions. Our article on robots.txt for AI crawlers sorts them out. - A different way to measure. Appearances in Google's AI features sit inside your Search Console data. Mentions in other assistants do not. Your server log can show visits under the user-agent names that providers publish, but a visit is not a mention. To learn whether an assistant names you, someone has to ask it and write the answers down. Our reading: one answer proves little, so repeat the same questions over time. AI visibility checker describes a manual way. That is a separate job from technical checking.
- A different kind of promise. Google states conditions and says plainly that appearing is not guaranteed. The other providers tell you how to let their search bots in and what blocking does. OpenAI: "Sites that are opted out of OAI-SearchBot will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers, though can still appear as navigational links." None of the pages cited here describes a method that gets a page named or cited. That is not proof that no such method exists. It is the limit of what we can claim.
What do GEO and SEO share technically?
A bot that is blocked, or a page without readable text, leaves nothing to read, whichever label you use. These five points are the shared basis:
- The page is indexed and may show a snippet. This is Google's one technical requirement. Avoid
noindex, and note thatnosnippetalso prevents the content from being used as a direct input for AI Overviews and AI Mode, according to Google's robots meta tag documentation. - Crawling is allowed everywhere. In robots.txt, at the CDN and at the host. A clean robots.txt proves nothing about a firewall rule that rejects bots.
- Important pages are linked internally. Pages without an internal link pointing to them are called orphan pages.
- Key content is text in the HTML you serve. Google lists text among its basics, and its JavaScript documentation notes that "not all bots can run JavaScript".
- You chose on purpose which bots may come. OpenAI recommends allowing OAI-SearchBot to appear in ChatGPT search results, and Perplexity recommends allowing PerplexityBot. Whether training bots may come is your decision. Allowing a bot is a precondition, not a promise.
Our reading: points 1 to 4 are classic SEO, and point 5 is a decision more than an optimization. That is why we say the technical basis is shared.
Where SEOgrinder fits, and what it does not measure
Disclosure: SEOgrinder is our tool, and we build it. SEOgrinder is a free scanner. You enter the address of a public website and get a report without an account. These parts fit the five points:
- Page on Google: title, meta description, canonical, robots directives and headings.
- Technology & security: redirect chains. robots.txt and the sitemap are checked under “AI readiness”, and the “Indexing” card in “Page on Google” shows whether robots.txt blocks the page and whether it is in the sitemap.
- AI readiness: the area "Checks for AI agents" has three basics (robots.txt, sitemap, rules for AI crawlers) and four extras (Content-Signals, llms.txt, Markdown version, link headers). For the extras the tool itself says that an effect on Google is not proven. Met points expand to show the text that was found, with the button "Copy agent prompt" for a coding assistant.
- Website: internal links, broken targets and orphan pages.
A page that builds only in the browser appears in the task list as "The page is only assembled in the browser". SEOgrinder does not measure whether ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity or any other assistant names your site. It checks the technical basis: can your pages be reached and read? Tools that track mentions do a different job.
Common mistakes
- Starting a "GEO project" before the basics. A page that is not indexed, or cannot show a snippet, is not eligible as a supporting link in Google's AI features.
- Building files or markup only "for AI" and expecting Google to use them. Google says you need no new machine readable files, AI text files or markup. The page does not name llms.txt; see What is llms.txt? for what is known.
- Blocking Google-Extended to leave AI Overviews. Google says it does not affect inclusion in Google Search. For Search, the controls are the Googlebot rules and the snippet controls.
- Using
nosnippeton the whole site and expecting to be shown. Per Google, it also keeps the content out of AI Overviews and AI Mode as an input. - Counting a bot visit as a mention. A log line shows a fetch, not an answer that names you.
- Taking a label as proof of a method. When someone proposes a "GEO task", ask which documented setting or fact it changes. If the answer is one of the shared basics, it is SEO under another name. If nothing documented stands behind it, treat the effect as unproven.
- Expecting an instant change. Google says that after you change preview controls, recrawling can take anywhere from several days to several months, and OpenAI says its systems need about 24 hours to adjust to a robots.txt update for search results.
FAQ
Is GEO just SEO?
For Google's AI features, Google's documentation says that the SEO best practices remain relevant and that there are no additional requirements. For other assistants, the providers document their bots and settings, and we found no primary source that describes a lever specific to GEO. Our reading: what is new is the bot decisions and the measuring, not a second set of fixes.
What is the difference between GEO and AEO?
We found no official definition of either label. Treat both as labels and ask what job an article means by them: being linked in Google's AI features, or being named by another assistant. These two have different documentation and different ways to measure.
Do I need llms.txt or special schema.org markup for AI Overviews?
Google says no. It says you don't need new machine readable files, AI text files or markup, and no special schema.org structured data. The page does not name llms.txt, so read our article on the file for the rest.
Where do I see traffic from AI Overviews?
Google counts sites that appear in AI features within the overall search traffic in Search Console, in the Performance report under the "Web" search type.
Does SEOgrinder measure GEO?
No. SEOgrinder does not measure whether assistants name a site. It checks whether your pages can be reached and read, and it reports what to fix first.
Your next step
Run the free scan on your site with SEOgrinder and work from the top of the task list: indexing and crawling first, then internal links and the HTML you serve. Open the AI readiness tab to see which bot rules you have set, and decide on purpose which ones you want. Only then is it worth tracking mentions, for example by hand as described in AI visibility checker.