Generative Engine Optimization

GEO agency: become the source generative AI cites

Generative engines don't hand back ten links — they write an answer and credit a few sources. Complete Ranking's Generative Engine Optimization work makes your pages the ones they quote, your data the numbers they repeat and your brand the name they recommend.

Get a free GEO audit Try the fan-out tool

≈40%visibility lift the original GEO paper reported for its best methods

Fan-outwe map the sub-queries engines run behind each prompt

Dataoriginal statistics that models repeat and attribute

Trusted by US teamsin healthcare AI, fintech, AI/ML and B2B software

Definition

What is Generative Engine Optimization?

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is the practice of shaping content so generative AI systems select it, synthesize it and attribute it when they write an answer. It targets engines like ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude and Google AI Mode, where the output is a written response with a handful of cited sources rather than a ranked list.

The term comes from a 2023 paper, "GEO: Generative Engine Optimization" (Aggarwal et al.), which tested how content changes affect a source's visibility in generative answers. Its headline finding: adding citations, quotations from relevant sources and statistics improved visibility by up to roughly 40% on the authors' benchmark — while old-school keyword stuffing did little.

What engines reward

The content signals generative engines prefer

Generative models are trying to write a confident, verifiable answer. Content that makes that easy gets used.

Statistics with sources

Specific numbers — ideally your own — give a model something concrete to state and a reason to credit you for it.

Expert quotations

Named, attributable quotes from practitioners add authority a summary can borrow, and tie the claim to your page.

Cited claims

Claims backed by references to primary sources read as more trustworthy to both models and the people checking their work.

Self-contained passages

Sections that answer their heading in the first sentence or two can be lifted cleanly without the rest of the page.

Comparisons & tables

"X vs Y", "best for" and pricing tables map directly onto the comparison questions users ask generative engines.

Clear entities

Consistent names, categories and facts across your site, schema and the wider web help a model know exactly who you are.

What doesn't work: keyword stuffing, AI-spun pages with nothing new to say, and hidden text aimed at models. The GEO paper found keyword stuffing performed poorly in generative engines, and thin content gives a model no reason to cite you over the dozens of pages that say the same thing.

Before & after

What GEO rewriting looks like

An illustrative passage from a B2B software page, before and after GEO restructuring.

Before

Generic and unquotable

"Our innovative platform helps healthcare organizations streamline their revenue cycle with cutting-edge AI. We're passionate about helping our customers achieve better outcomes and work more efficiently every day."

After

Specific, attributable, extractable

"Autonomous medical coding software assigns ICD-10 and CPT codes to clinical notes without a human coder touching routine charts. It differs from computer-assisted coding (CAC), which only suggests codes for a coder to approve. Hospitals typically evaluate it on accuracy audits, denial rates and coder hours saved."

Services

What our GEO agency delivers

GEO is part research, part editorial and part PR. We cover all three.

Generative visibility audit

Which sources each engine cites for your priority topics, how often you appear, and what the winning pages do that yours don't.

Query fan-out mapping

AI Mode and ChatGPT break one prompt into many sub-queries. We map them and make sure you have a strong answer for each.

Content restructuring

Answer-first sections, definitions, comparison tables, sourced statistics and expert quotes added to the pages that matter most.

Original data & research

Surveys, benchmarks and analyses of your own data that give journalists and models a number to cite — with your name on it.

Entity & knowledge graph

Organization and Person schema with sameAs links, consistent profiles, and Wikidata entries where your brand is notable.

Brand mentions & co-citation

Coverage alongside the category leaders in the lists, reviews and articles that generative engines retrieve and trust.

GEO vs AEO vs SEO

Three disciplines, one program

	SEO	AEO	GEO
Optimizes for	Ranked search results	Being named in AI answers	Being synthesized and cited by generative models
Core question	Does my page rank?	Does the assistant recommend us?	Is my content the part the model uses?
Key tactics	Technical health, relevance, links	Prompt tracking, entity clarity, mentions	Statistics, quotations, citations, fan-out coverage
Success metric	Positions, clicks, conversions	Mention rate, share of voice	Citation rate, attribution, answer accuracy

Start with the foundation on our SEO agency page, or see how we track recommendations on the AEO agency page.

Process

How a GEO engagement runs

We prioritize the topics where being the cited source is worth the most to your pipeline.

01 Weeks 1–2

Map

Pick the money topics, build prompt sets, run fan-out analysis and record which sources each engine cites today.

02 Weeks 2–4

Diagnose

Compare your pages with the cited ones: missing sub-topics, weak evidence, buried answers, unclear entities.

03 Months 2–4

Rebuild

Restructure priority pages, publish original data, add expert input and fix schema and crawler access.

04 Ongoing

Amplify

Earn mentions and co-citations, refresh content as answers shift, and report citation share every month.

Free GEO tools

Start optimizing today

All free tools

AI search

Query Fan-Out Generator

Map the sub-queries AI Mode and ChatGPT run behind a single prompt.

AI search

AI Agent Readiness Check

Score any URL on the signals AI crawlers and agents look for: robots, llms.txt, schema, rendering and more.

AI search

llms.txt Generator

Generate a clean llms.txt and llms-full.txt from your sitemap.

Technical SEO

Schema Markup Generator

Generate JSON-LD for Organization, LocalBusiness, FAQ, Article and Product.

AI search

AI Instructions Page Generator

Build a canonical brand-facts page AI assistants can read and cite.

On-page & content

Readability Score Calculator

Flesch-Kincaid, Gunning Fog and Coleman-Liau scores with fixes.

GEO guides

Go deeper on generative search

All guides

AEO & GEO9 min read

Generative engine optimization (GEO): the complete guide

GEO is the work of shaping how AI systems select, quote and describe your brand. Here is what the original research found, which tactics hold up, and how to audit your own generative visibility.

AEO & GEO10 min read

What is answer engine optimization (AEO)?

AEO is the work of becoming the source AI assistants quote and the business they recommend. Here is how answer engines pick sources, how AEO differs from SEO and GEO, and how to measure it.

AEO & GEO9 min read

How to rank in Google AI Overviews and AI Mode

Google says there is no secret formula for its AI features, and it means it. Here is what earns citations, how query fan-out changes your keyword plan, and how to measure the results.

FAQ

GEO agency questions

What does a GEO agency do?

A GEO agency optimizes how generative AI systems use your content. We audit how engines like ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google AI Mode synthesize answers in your category, then restructure your pages, publish citable data and build the brand mentions those engines rely on — so your content becomes a source the model quotes and attributes.

Is GEO the same as AEO?

They overlap so much that many people use the terms interchangeably. We draw the line this way: AEO is about being named and recommended in AI answers; GEO is about how your content gets selected, synthesized and attributed when a model writes that answer. In practice we run them together — see our AEO agency page.

Where does the term Generative Engine Optimization come from?

From a 2023 research paper, "GEO: Generative Engine Optimization" by Aggarwal and colleagues at Princeton, Georgia Tech, the Allen Institute for AI and IIT Delhi. It tested content changes on a benchmark of queries and reported that methods like adding citations, quotations and statistics could raise a source's visibility in generative answers by up to 40%.

Does GEO replace SEO?

No. Most generative engines retrieve from search indexes before they write, so a page that can't be crawled or doesn't rank is rarely in the candidate set. GEO is the layer on top: once your page is retrieved, it decides whether your content is the part the model uses. That's why GEO works best inside an SEO program.

How do you measure GEO results?

We track a fixed set of prompts across engines every week and measure citation rate (how often your URLs are cited), mention rate (how often your brand is named), share of voice against competitors, and whether the facts the model states about you are accurate. We pair that with AI referral sessions and conversions in GA4.

What kind of content works best for GEO?

Content with something a model can't get elsewhere: original statistics, clear definitions, specific comparisons, expert quotes and well-labeled tables. Pages that answer a question in the first two sentences of a section and then support it with evidence tend to be synthesized and cited far more than long, generic overviews.

Free audit

See how generative engines summarize your category.

We'll show you which sources ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and AI Mode cite for your most valuable topics, where your content is left out, and the changes that would put it in.

Get your free audit See our results