GEO stands for generative engine optimisation: you make it likely that ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Microsoft Copilot or Google AI Overviews name your business or use it as a source when someone asks a question. It does not replace SEO, it builds on it. Nobody can guarantee you will be named. You can, however, measure for yourself whether it is already happening, and that takes about an hour.
The difference is in the moment of choice. On Google, the visitor picks from a list of links. With a language model, the visitor gets one answer, with perhaps a few businesses or sources named. That is where you want to appear.
What is the difference between SEO and GEO?
Martin van Kranenburg, author of the Dutch book Van SEO naar GEO (English title: GEO, the new SEO), put it this way in Adformatie on 12 February 2026: SEO has not gone away, but it has lost its starting position. In his view SEO remains a foundation, but it has become a hygiene factor. Above it sits being chosen at the moment a language model answers on the user's behalf.
Search Engine Land reaches the same conclusion: GEO builds on SEO and focuses on mentions and citations in AI answers rather than on rankings and clicks. In practice:
- SEO: you want to rank high in a list. You measure position, clicks and traffic.
- GEO: you want to be named in an answer. You measure how often, in what context, and whether you are used as a source.
Why does website traffic no longer tell you enough?
Van Kranenburg sees website traffic falling by 30 to 40 per cent among his clients. That is his own observation, not a study, so your situation may differ. His point still holds: less traffic does not automatically mean less visibility. The moment of decision can move into the conversation with the language model. A dashboard that only shows traffic then cannot tell you whether you are being named.
There is a second reason to measure. Semrush tracked 2,500 prompts across Google AI Mode and ChatGPT and found that between 40 and 60 per cent of cited sources change from month to month (published on Search Engine Land, 24 September 2026). Semrush sells measurement tools itself, so read this as a vendor figure. The study covers only those two, not Copilot or Claude. The lesson is still useful: a single measurement is a snapshot. Repeat it.
How do you run a GEO baseline yourself in an hour?
Van Kranenburg advises deciding what you want to stand for first, then taking a baseline before you change anything. Here is how to turn that into an hour of work:
- Pick three themes your customers should know you for.
- Write twenty questions the way a customer asks them, not the way you name your service. For example: "Who can help me with ...?", "What should I look for when ...?" or "What is the difference between ... and ...?"
- Ask each question in ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Microsoft Copilot and Google. On Google, check whether an AI Overview appears above the results. In the other tools, switch on web search where you can, and bear in mind that each tool may draw on different sources. Use a clean window, ideally logged out or without a memory feature, so earlier conversations do not colour the answer.
- Note four things per answer: were you named, in what context (recommended, merely mentioned or negative), which source was used and which competitor did appear.
- Repeat after a month with the same questions and compare.
In this fictional example, a company sells bookkeeping software to freelancers. One line from the baseline looks like this:
- Theme: bookkeeping for freelancers
- Question: "Which bookkeeping software suits a freelancer with few invoices?"
- Tool: ChatGPT, with search on
- Named: no
- Context: not applicable
- Source: a comparison site
- Competitor: two competitors named
For this question the company is missing. That makes it a candidate for a page of its own with the answer up front. What you get is not a score but a list of gaps: for which questions are you missing, and which page should contain the answer?
A spreadsheet is enough. If you would rather not set one up, use our baseline template. It counts for you how often you are named, per tool.
What do you do with the result?
Start with the questions where a competitor is named and you are not. These steps help:
- Put the answer first. One page per question, a direct answer in the opening paragraph and the source next to it.
- Be the same everywhere. Use the same description of who you are and what you do on your site, on LinkedIn and in mentions.
- Let others write about you. Van Kranenburg argues that authority shows in what your network confirms about you, not in what you claim yourself. Think of customer cases with permission, trade media and partners.
- Keep your SEO basics in order. A technically accessible site with good content remains the foundation.
If an agency promises that this will get you into ChatGPT, be careful. Nobody knows exactly which source a language model will pick.
What does this look like in practice?
We run Google Ads, SEO and GEO for several companies, Selera Anda among them. At Selera Anda, according to our work page, the average search position went from 19.0 to 10.6, and impressions in AI search results went from 0 to roughly 18,600. Those are impressions, not clicks or revenue. And we cannot say for each part which measure had which effect.
When is GEO not yet your first step?
- Your website is technically not in order or has little content. Start with SEO.
- Your customers mainly find you through your network. A baseline costs little, but larger investments can wait.
- You want a hard score. Answers differ per attempt, per user and per model. Counting by hand gives an indication, not an exact measurement.
Do you want to know whether ChatGPT and Google AI name your business today, and which pages would need to change? Book a conversation.
Sources
- Adformatie (Rens Blom), AI-expert Martin van Kranenburg: 'We bewegen van een zoekmachinetijdperk naar een antwoordmachinetijdperk', 12 February 2026 (in Dutch).
- Search Engine Land, Generative engine optimization (GEO): How to win AI mentions, 24 September 2026.
- Martin van Kranenburg and Bob van Duuren, Van SEO naar GEO (English title: GEO, the new SEO), via martinvankranenburg.nl.
