Is GEO just SEO with a new name? Our view after running both
Our practitioner view on whether GEO is just SEO with a new name: where the work overlaps, where it differs, and how we run both for clients.
We get this question from clients, and sometimes from our own SEO team. Our honest answer after running both for clients is that GEO is not a rebrand, and it is not a replacement either. It shares a core with SEO and adds three problems that classic SEO tools were not built to solve. Knowing which is which saves you from both overspending and underinvesting.
The shared core
Google's documentation on AI features in Search says that SEO best practices remain relevant for AI Overviews and AI Mode, that there are no additional requirements, and that no special optimization is necessary. To be a supporting link, a page must be indexed and eligible to show with a snippet. Google also says you do not need new machine-readable files or special schema.
We agree with that, and it matches what we see. The pages that get cited in AI answers are usually pages that were already good: clear, accurate, well structured, crawlable, backed by real sources. When a client has weak pages, we fix those first, and it helps in every channel. Nobody should pay for GEO tooling to avoid doing that work.
The three problems SEO tools do not solve
Measurement. There is no rank. An AI answer is a paragraph with citations inside it. The 2024 GEO paper (KDD 2024) makes this point, noting that visibility in generative engines is multi-dimensional and proposing metrics built for that. We track mentions, citations, position within the answer and share of voice over a fixed prompt set, and we report trends, not single readings, because answers vary between runs.
Sources you do not own. AI recommendations are often formed from third-party pages. We look at which outside pages get cited for the prompts that matter and plan outreach, reviews and community work around those. Classic link building does not tell you which pages the engines actually read.
Access. Bots like GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, ChatGPT-User, ClaudeBot and PerplexityBot need to reach your pages. Search Console does not show them. Server-level logs do. We have found important sections blocked by firewall rules no one remembered setting.
There is also attribution. AI referral traffic is often thinly labeled, so proving value takes dedicated measurement.
What the research adds
The GEO paper tested content changes on a 10,000-query benchmark and found that adding citations, quotations from relevant sources and statistics raised visibility by up to about 40% on its metrics, with up to 37% on Perplexity. Effects varied by domain. We take two lessons. Sourced, substantive writing helps, which is good SEO too. And the right tactic depends on your category, so test.
How we run both
We keep one team and one roadmap. Technical SEO and content quality come first. The GEO layer sits on top: a prompt set, citation tracking, crawler checks, and a traffic view.
For that layer we use Promptwatch. Daily prompt panels give Visibility Score, Share of Voice, Sentiment and Position in Answer. Citation analytics covers page and domain level citations plus Reddit, YouTube and LinkedIn. Agent Analytics logs IP-verified AI crawler visits. Query fan-outs per model show how each engine searches. Visitor analytics attributes AI-referred traffic and conversions. Search Insights overlays Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools data, including Microsoft Copilot traffic, on AI crawls and citations, so SEO and GEO sit in the same view and we do not need to reconcile two reports by hand.
The Action Board gives a prioritized list, with a Discovery agent suggesting up to five evidence-backed actions per weekly run. Content Refresh, and on Business plans the Content Agent, help execute.
Plan notes
Essential ($95 a month) has the tracking and citation reports but no crawler logs. Professional ($245) adds crawler logs and custom reports. Business ($579) adds the Content Agent. Agency self-serve plans (Kick-off $199, Growth $399, Scale $799) include all models and crawler logs. The free Explore plan is 10 prompts on ChatGPT only.
What we tell skeptics
If you think GEO is a rename, ask what you can currently see about your visibility inside ChatGPT answers, which pages the engines cite for your category and which AI bots your site blocks. If your SEO stack answers all three, you may not need more. Most do not.
What we tell enthusiasts
Do not abandon fundamentals for tricks. Google says there is no special markup for its AI features, and we have not seen convincing evidence for most of the tricks that circulate. Measure first, change one thing at a time, and do not promise outcomes the engines have not agreed to.