GEO is working on your visibility in AI answers, and that is largely just SEO: being visible wherever your audience searches. What does shift is the weight of evidence outside your own site, such as mentions, reviews and PR.
What is GEO? GEO stands for Generative Engine Optimisation: making sure you are mentioned in the answers of AI assistants. In practice it is largely just SEO, only broader: being visible wherever your audience searches.
That sounds less exciting than the sales pitches, but it is the sober state of affairs. Below you can read what stays the same and what is different. You will also read how to recognise an agency that sells old work under a new label.
It is still SEO: Search Everywhere Optimization
Rand Fishkin wrote a fierce piece about this in May 2025. The title: "Seriously, please stop with the new acronyms. It's still SEO: Search Everywhere Optimization." In other words: stop with the new acronyms, it is still SEO.
The term Search Everywhere Optimization was coined by Ashley Liddell. It means being visible on all the platforms where your audience looks for information: Google, YouTube, Reddit, Pinterest and AI tools.
AIO, AEO, GEO, LLMEO, and the other 15 I saw on LinkedIn today are not the way.
Put simply: all those acronyms, plus the rest he saw on LinkedIn that day, are not the right way forward. According to Fishkin, as an SEO specialist you already do most of the work:
I'd bet if you've done SEO for the last few years, you're <em>already</em> doing Search Everywhere Optimization.
So anyone who has done SEO well in recent years is probably already doing Search Everywhere Optimization. What is new is mainly the label.
Why new acronyms add little
A new acronym suggests a new discipline, with new specialists and new budgets. But the basics have stayed the same: understand what your audience is looking for, create the best content and make sure others talk about you. An AI assistant draws its knowledge from the same web as a search engine.
Fishkin sees it that way in the long term too, in the same piece from May 2025:
So long as human beings attempt to acquire information prior to making purchases, (the new) SEO will be needed.
As long as people look for information before they buy something, (the new) SEO will remain necessary. That applies to Google, to YouTube and to AI assistants.
Your own site also remains important. In June 2026 Fishkin advised not to neglect your website, because its content still influences AI answers. In his view SEO remains valuable for branded searches, local businesses and searches with high purchase intent; see also what local GEO means for local businesses.
What is different: evidence outside your site
There is a real shift, though. The weight lies more on what others say about you than on your own pages. According to Fishkin (October 2025), appearing in AI answers is linked to:
- brands that appear often in documents on the web;
- brands that appear in recent documents;
- positive mentions on Reddit and YouTube;
- lists of the "best agency for X" type that appear in many places.
SparkToro sums it up like this: search captures demand, public evidence creates demand (SparkToro, ZCM Field Notes). Building evidence outside your site takes work: reviews, mentions in trade media and real contributions on forums. How to tackle that is set out in getting mentioned in ChatGPT through evidence elsewhere.
This is also the reason AI is easy to influence. Fishkin wrote in October 2025:
If this sounds like a recipe for using spam techniques to change AI answers fast, well my friend, you're paying attention.
If this sounds like a recipe for spam to change AI answers quickly, you are paying attention. According to Fishkin, Wil Reynolds showed that many SEO agencies put themselves at the top of lists this way.
unlike Google, these LLMs don't sort of have the spam and manipulation and intelligence signals to figure out when they're getting manipulated.
Unlike Google, language models are therefore still poor at recognising manipulation. That also works the other way round, as coding bootcamp CodeSmith found out.
A Reddit moderator, co-founder of a competitor, posted an average of one negative post a day about it for 500 days (Lars Lofgren). According to Fishkin (October 2025) that cost CodeSmith eighty percent of its revenue and dozens of jobs.
Why you are better off not going down that road is explained in why you had better not manipulate AI answers.
Recognise the agency selling old work under a new label
A lot of GEO offers are the old SEO package with a new name. In April and May 2026 De GEO Experts examined 15 Dutch GEO agencies. All of them offered technical audits and content creation, but only 27% carried out the technical implementation in full.
Furthermore, 93% advised on authority and 73% charged between €2,000 and €3,000 a month (De GEO Experts, May 2026). For that amount you may expect the work to actually be done.
Also striking: 80% called authority the most important factor, but fewer than a third could explain how it is built (De GEO Experts, May 2026). Only 20% offered active PR, while it is precisely mentions outside your site that make the difference. More on that in why many GEO agencies do not carry out the work.
Our founder also saw this pattern in his own work at agencies; that is practical experience, not research. Many agencies are owned by investors and staff have to bill virtually all their hours. Keeping up in a field that changes this fast then falls by the wayside.
Signs of old work under a new label:
- the package consists mainly of an audit and blog articles;
- there is no plan for mentions, reviews or PR outside your site;
- the agency promises a position in AI instead of a visibility percentage;
- the agency cannot explain how authority is built.
What you can do now
- Ask every agency which part of the work it carries out itself and which part stays with you.
- Ask how the agency builds mentions and reviews outside your site.
- Hold the check questions for GEO agencies up against every quote.
- Keep maintaining your website and your SEO basics, because they also feed AI answers.
Frequently asked questions
What is GEO?
GEO stands for Generative Engine Optimisation: working on your visibility in the answers of AI assistants such as ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews. In practice it largely overlaps with good SEO. See also: Position in ChatGPT: why a fixed number 1 spot does not exist.
Is GEO something different from SEO?
Largely not. Both revolve around understanding what your audience is looking for, good content and mentions by others. The difference lies mainly in the greater weight of evidence outside your site. See also: Local GEO: how a local business becomes visible in AI.
What does Search Everywhere Optimization mean?
Being visible on all the platforms where your audience looks for information, from Google and YouTube to Reddit and AI tools. The term comes from Ashley Liddell.
What are AEO and LLMEO?
Other acronyms for roughly the same thing: optimising for answer engines and language models. Rand Fishkin calls for an end to these new acronyms.
Do I need a separate GEO agency?
Not necessarily. A good SEO agency that also works on mentions, reviews and PR already does most of the work. Pay particular attention to who actually carries out the work. See also: Measuring AI mentions: branded searches and direct traffic as evidence.
What is actually new about GEO?
Mentions outside your own site carry more weight, such as on Reddit, YouTube and in lists. Recent content also seems to matter more.
Is my website still important for AI visibility?
Yes. The content of your site still influences AI answers. So do not neglect it.
How do I recognise an agency selling old work as GEO?
The package consists mainly of an audit and content, with no plan for mentions or PR. Often the agency also cannot explain how authority is built.
Can I quickly influence AI answers with lists?
It is possible, but it looks like spam and puts your reputation at risk. That AI is still poor at recognising manipulation makes abuse easy, but not wise.
What should I look for in a GEO quote?
Ask what the agency carries out itself, how it builds mentions and how it measures visibility. A promise of a position in AI is a red flag.
Sources
- Seriously, please stop with the new acronyms. It's still SEO: Search Everywhere Optimization (Rand Fishkin, SparkToro) (May 2025)
- In 2026, Less than One Third of Google Searches Still Send a Click (Rand Fishkin, SparkToro) (June 2026)
- We've Learned More About How to Appear in AI Answers (Rand Fishkin, SparkToro) (October 2025)
- If Search Captures Demand, Public Evidence Creates It (SparkToro, ZCM Field Notes) (data Q4 2025)
- Wat bieden GEO-bureaus in Nederland daadwerkelijk aan? (De GEO Experts) (May 2026)
- CodeSmith Reddit reputation attack (Lars Lofgren), discussed by SparkToro (October 2025)