# What is GEO > A practical, source-linked guide to Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) for business owners and marketers. Published by Adapt Progress Evolve (https://adaptprogressevolve.com/). Contact: hello@whatisgeo.app. Last reviewed 14 September 2026. GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation) is the practice of improving how visible and accurately represented a website is in answers generated by AI systems such as ChatGPT, Google's AI Overviews and Perplexity. GEO sits on top of SEO rather than replacing it; it influences the odds of being cited and guarantees nothing. This site is a free, single-page educational guide written for business owners and marketers, with no product to sell. This file is a navigation aid, not a statement of ranking eligibility or crawl permission. ## Guide - [Complete guide, Markdown](https://whatisgeo.app/guide.md): The whole guide as one Markdown document, with source links. - [Complete guide, plain text](https://whatisgeo.app/llms-full.txt): The same guide as plain text. - [What is GEO?](https://whatisgeo.app/#what-is-geo): Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) is the practice of improving how visible and accurately represented your website or content is in answers generated by AI systems like ChatGPT, Google's AI Overviews, or Perplexity. - [GEO and SEO](https://whatisgeo.app/#geo-vs-seo): GEO doesn't replace SEO. It sits on top of it, and overlaps heavily with a related idea called AEO (answer engine optimisation). - [How AI answers happen](https://whatisgeo.app/#how-it-works): Not every AI answer involves a live search. - [The principles](https://whatisgeo.app/#principles): Start with what people genuinely ask, not what you wish they asked. - [Let the right crawlers in](https://whatisgeo.app/#crawler-access): Here's the thing: blocking a crawler and welcoming one look almost identical from the outside. - [A practical example](https://whatisgeo.app/#example): Picture a small furniture shop, sells desks, run by two people and a website. - [Your first 30 days](https://whatisgeo.app/#getting-started): A realistic beginner plan. No agency required, no budget assumed. - [How to measure progress](https://whatisgeo.app/#measurement): A vendor's visibility score describes its own sample of prompts and platforms. - [Common questions](https://whatisgeo.app/#questions): Ten plain answers about GEO cost, timelines, guarantees, llms.txt and the training/search split. ## Common questions - [What's the actual difference between GEO and SEO?](https://whatisgeo.app/#questions): SEO gets your page ranking in traditional search results. - [Is SEO dead now that AI answers exist?](https://whatisgeo.app/#questions): No. Google's own guidance confirms that a page must be indexed and eligible for a normal search snippet before it can feed AI Overviews or AI Mode. - [Do I need to write special code for GEO?](https://whatisgeo.app/#questions): No special schema or dedicated AI text file is required. - [What does GEO cost?](https://whatisgeo.app/#questions): It depends entirely on what you're starting from. - [How long before I see results?](https://whatisgeo.app/#questions): There's no fixed timeline, and nobody honest will give you one. - [Do I need an llms.txt file?](https://whatisgeo.app/#questions): It's an optional, experimental proposal (see [llmstxt.org](https://llmstxt.org/)) for offering AI systems a machine-readable summary of your site. - [Can you guarantee we'll be cited by ChatGPT or Google?](https://whatisgeo.app/#questions): No, and be wary of anyone who says yes. Citation and mention outcomes vary by platform, query, and time, and no legitimate practice can promise placement in someone else's generated answer. - [What's the difference between AI training and AI search?](https://whatisgeo.app/#questions): Training is how a model learned language and facts from a large historical dataset, fixed at a point in time. - [Is any of this realistic for a small business with no dedicated marketing team?](https://whatisgeo.app/#questions): Yes. Start with a narrow topic where you have real knowledge. - [How often should I update GEO-related content?](https://whatisgeo.app/#questions): Whenever a genuine fact changes: prices, specs, availability, regulations. ## Sources the guide cites - [Google Search Central: AI features and your website](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/ai-features) - [Aggarwal et al.: GEO: Generative Engine Optimization (KDD 2024)](https://arxiv.org/abs/2311.09735) - [OpenAI: overview of crawlers](https://developers.openai.com/api/docs/bots) - [Perplexity: crawler documentation](https://docs.perplexity.ai/docs/resources/perplexity-crawlers) - [The llms.txt proposal](https://llmstxt.org/) ## Publisher - [Adapt Progress Evolve](https://adaptprogressevolve.com/): The UK software studio that publishes this guide. - [Adapt Progress Evolve on hilyt](https://i.hilyt.it/ape): AI-readable profile of the publisher. - [What is GEO on hilyt](https://i.hilyt.it/whatisgeo): AI-readable profile of this site. - [Source code](https://github.com/StovBuilds/whatisgeo): The site's code on GitHub (MIT); the guide text itself is © the publisher. ## Optional - [Privacy](https://whatisgeo.app/privacy/): Newsletter data and website preferences. - [Sitemap](https://whatisgeo.app/sitemap.xml)