Generative engine optimisation is the work of making your business the answer that ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot and Google AI Overviews give when someone asks for a recommendation in your category. EqualPixels does this work on our own products and for clients, and we are candid about which parts are proven and which are not.
What GEO and AEO actually mean
GEO, generative engine optimisation, is about being cited and recommended inside AI-generated answers. AEO, answer engine optimisation, is the closely related work of winning featured snippets and voice answers. Both rest on the same foundation as classic SEO: your pages have to be indexed, crawlable and snippet-eligible before an AI engine can quote them.
Search interest in generative engine optimisation grew roughly tenfold in the eighteen months to 2026. Most of what is being sold under the name is repackaged SEO with a markup.
What we do
AI visibility baseline
We run your category’s real buying questions through ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Mode, record who gets named and which sources get cited, and give you the honest starting position rather than a vanity score.
Crawlability and rendering fixes
AI crawlers do not execute JavaScript. If your content only exists after the page hydrates, it is invisible to them even when Google renders it fine. This is the single most common technical blocker we find, and fixing it changes more than any amount of schema.
Answer-first content restructuring
Question headings, a direct forty to sixty word answer immediately beneath, comparison tables, definitions that survive being lifted out of context, statistics with named sources, and visible dates. This is what gets quoted.
Entity and structured data
Complete Organization schema, consistent naming, breadcrumbs, author identity, and clean sameAs links across your real profiles. This helps search engines resolve who you are. We do not claim it makes AI engines cite you, because the best available evidence does not support that.
Off-site presence
AI answers lean heavily on third-party sources: category listicles, review directories, LinkedIn, YouTube and community discussion. We build a plan to get you legitimately included in the pages the models already read.
Bing and Copilot setup
Bing Webmaster Tools, its AI performance reporting, and IndexNow so updated pages are picked up immediately. Bing is under-contested and reports AI citation data that Google does not.
Measurement
Google Search Console generative AI reporting, Bing AI performance data, referral tracking from AI assistants, and a monthly re-run of your baseline prompts.
What we will not tell you
- That schema markup makes AI engines cite you. Google states plainly that structured data is not required for its AI features, and the largest independent study to date found no measurable citation effect. We implement schema for search fundamentals, not as a citation trick.
- That llms.txt will do anything. Google has said it does not use it. In one analysis of 137,000 domains, the overwhelming majority of llms.txt files were never requested at all. It costs an hour, so we ship it, and we promise nothing.
- That you should move budget from SEO to GEO. Organic search still sends roughly a hundred times more traffic than AI assistants for most businesses. GEO is worth doing because it is largely the same work, not because it has replaced anything.
- That we can manufacture brand mentions. Astroturfing communities is detectable, against platform rules, and reputationally expensive.
Frequently asked questions
How do I get my business recommended by ChatGPT?
Make sure your site is crawlable without JavaScript and not blocking OAI-SearchBot, publish clear answer-first content on the questions buyers actually ask, and get legitimately included in the third-party listicles, directories and community discussions that AI assistants cite. There is no submission form and no paid placement.
Does schema markup help with AI search?
Google says structured data is not required for its generative features, and controlled testing has not found a measurable citation lift. Microsoft has said schema helps Bing’s models understand content. We implement it because it earns real search features and costs little, not because it guarantees citations.
Should we block AI crawlers?
Blocking retrieval crawlers such as OAI-SearchBot and PerplexityBot removes you from those products’ answers entirely. Training crawlers are a separate decision with no effect on search visibility. We help you set the policy deliberately rather than by accident.
How long does GEO take to show results?
Technical and content fixes show in classic search within weeks. AI citation shifts more slowly, because models and their retrieval indexes update on their own schedule. Expect a meaningful read at three months, not three weeks.
Is GEO different from SEO?
Roughly eighty per cent overlaps. The differences are the emphasis on extractable answer formatting, entity clarity, third-party presence over raw backlinks, and measurement across engines rather than Google alone.
Can you do this for our site if you did not build it?
Yes. Most of this work is content and configuration, and we start with an audit that tells you what is worth fixing before you commit to anything.