GEO: How to Get Your Site Cited by AI Search
Generative Engine Optimization explained — how ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI choose sources, and how to become one.
A growing share of searches never reach a blue link — the answer appears directly in ChatGPT, Perplexity or Google's AI Overviews. Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is the practice of becoming the source those answers cite. Here's the playbook.
1. Let the right crawlers in
AI engines can only cite what they can crawl. Check your robots.txt with the AI Crawler Access Checker — blocking OAI-SearchBot or PerplexityBot removes you from their answers entirely. (Blocking training-only bots like GPTBot is a separate decision that doesn't affect citations.)
2. Publish an llms.txt
The emerging llms.txt standard gives AI systems a curated summary of your site — what it is, which pages matter. Generate one in two minutes with the llms.txt Generator and upload it to your site root.
3. Write in citable blocks
AI answers quote self-contained passages: a crisp definition, a stat with its source, a numbered process. Structure content so any paragraph can stand alone. Question-formatted headings (find them with the Question Finder) map directly onto the queries people ask AI assistants.
4. Mark it up
Structured data helps engines understand and attribute your content. FAQ and Article schema from the Schema Generator are the highest-leverage types for GEO.
5. Be verifiable
AI engines favor sources that other sources corroborate. Original data, named authors, cited references and consistent facts across your site all raise your odds of being the quoted authority rather than the paraphrased anonymous one.
Classic SEO gets you ranked; GEO gets you quoted. In 2026 you need both.