SEO (Search Engine Optimization) gets your pages to rank in traditional search results; GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) gets your brand cited inside AI-generated answers. Put simply, SEO optimizes for rankings and clicks on Google and Bing, while GEO optimizes for inclusion and citation in answers produced by ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, and Google’s AI Overviews. The term “Generative Engine Optimization” was introduced by Aggarwal and colleagues in a 2024 study published at the ACM SIGKDD conference. The two disciplines share one foundation — clear, trustworthy, well-structured content — but target different surfaces and are measured differently, which is why a modern strategy runs both together. (You will also see GEO referred to as AEO, answer engine optimization; the tactics overlap heavily.)