---
title: "GEO | Glossary"
description: GEO, generative engine optimization, is the work of becoming a source that answer engines can retrieve, interpret, extract, and verify. It is not a bag of hidden prompts. Eligibility, extractable answers, original value, and evidence that survives scrutiny are the levers. Ranking in ten blue links is a different job. Google does not require schema, chunking, or an llms.txt file for AI Overviews. A page that cannot be quoted cleanly will not be cited, even if it ranks.
image: "https://lenvanderhof.com/photos/len-portrait-1.jpg"
---

Term

# GEO

GEO, generative engine optimization, is the work of becoming a source that answer engines can retrieve, interpret, extract, and verify. It is not a bag of hidden prompts. Eligibility, extractable answers, original value, and evidence that survives scrutiny are the levers. Ranking in ten blue links is a different job. Google does not require schema, chunking, or an llms.txt file for AI Overviews. A page that cannot be quoted cleanly will not be cited, even if it ranks.

## When to use it

Use it when the question is “why did ChatGPT cite them, not us?” If crawlers can fetch the page and models still never name you, the missing work is citability, not another keyword.

## Do not confuse with

Not geographic SEO. Generative, not geography.

## Essays on this site

- [How answer engines select sources](https://lenvanderhof.com/en/blog/how-answer-engines-select-sources/)
- [How to get cited by ChatGPT](https://lenvanderhof.com/en/blog/how-to-get-cited-2026/)
- [Content architecture that answer engines can lift](https://lenvanderhof.com/en/blog/content-architecture-for-answer-engines/)
- [GEO meaning: generative engine optimization, not geography](https://lenvanderhof.com/en/blog/what-geo-means/)
- [What AEO means: answer engine optimization, not customs](https://lenvanderhof.com/en/blog/what-is-aeo/)

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