Also called AI search visibility or GEO, it is the practice of structuring content so AI answer engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity or Google’s AI Overviews cite it as a source when generating a summarised answer, rather than optimising purely for a traditional ranked list of links.
Traditional SEO optimises for appearing in a ranked list a person scans. Generative engine optimisation optimises for being the source an AI system draws from and cites when it generates a direct, summarised answer, which depends more on factual clarity and structure than on traditional ranking signals alone.
Clear, extractable factual statements, structured data marking up key facts, and content organised the way a model actually parses it rather than the way a marketing page is traditionally written. See AI search visibility for how we restructure content for this specifically.
Citation decisions are made by each AI provider’s own system and cannot be controlled directly. The work is to improve the structural factors within reach and measure the resulting changes.
No, generative engine optimisation builds on traditional SEO rather than replacing it. Much of the underlying work — clear structure, authoritative sourcing, well-organised content — benefits both traditional search rankings and how AI systems summarise or cite your content. Companies that already have strong SEO foundations typically need targeted additions for AI visibility rather than a separate strategy built from scratch.
The direct way is to query major AI tools with the questions your audience asks and review what they say about your company, whether they cite you at all, and whether the information is accurate. See AI search visibility audit for how we run that assessment systematically across multiple AI platforms and turn the findings into a prioritised action list.
Generally, no, not for content you want AI systems to find and cite. Blocking crawlers prevents your public content from being represented at all, including inaccurately by AI systems drawing on third-party sources instead. There are narrower cases where blocking specific bots makes sense, covered in should we block AI crawlers, but blanket blocking usually works against visibility goals.
Timelines vary by AI platform, since some index and update their responses faster than others, but early changes in AI citation can appear within weeks of clearer structure and sourcing going live, with fuller results building over a few months as AI systems refresh their underlying data. This is generally faster than traditional SEO ranking changes, though less predictable and harder to measure consistently.
Tell us your content and we will tell you how we would restructure it for AI citation.