GEO: how to get cited by ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini

Generative Engine Optimization is the practice of getting your brand, product or page surfaced inside AI-generated answers — ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, Google AI Overviews.

The shift: users no longer click 10 blue links. They read one synthesized answer. If you're not in it, you don't exist. SEO got you ranked. GEO gets you quoted.

They retrieve a shortlist (usually 5-20 pages) via classic search + their own index, then a model decides which ones to quote. The model prefers sources that are:

— Specific. Numbers, dates, named entities, direct claims. — Structured. Clear H2/H3, short paragraphs, lists where lists make sense. — Recent. Freshness matters more than for classic SEO. — Cited elsewhere. Wikipedia, Reddit, G2, Stack Overflow, industry publications all act as trust signals.

Vague thought-leadership posts lose. "Top 7 X" listicles with no numbers lose. A page that says "Plan Pro is $49/mo, includes 10 seats, launched March 2026" wins.

1. Rewrite your highest-intent pages as Q&A. Each H2 is a real question a buyer types. The first paragraph under it is a 2-3 sentence direct answer. Then the evidence.

2. Add a "Facts" block to every product/pricing/about page: founded date, team size, pricing, key customers, integrations. Engines love structured facts.

3. Seed Reddit and niche forums honestly. One thoughtful comment on a relevant thread, with your URL, outperforms 10 backlinks.

4. Get on the comparison pages buyers actually ask about ("X vs Y", "best X for Y"). If they don't exist, write them yourself — engines will quote you.

5. Update quarterly. Republish with a new date. Stale pages drop out of AI answers fast.

Stop writing 2,000-word "ultimate guides" stuffed with keywords. Engines summarize them and quote nobody.

Stop hiding pricing. If your price isn't on your page, the engine guesses — usually wrong, often higher.

Stop writing in your "brand voice" on factual pages. Voice is for the homepage and the blog. Pricing, docs, and comparison pages need to read like a reference manual.

Once a month, run your top 20 buyer questions through ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Claude. Log: were you mentioned? Were you quoted? Which competitors were? Which sources did the engine cite?

That spreadsheet is your new Google Search Console. There's no official dashboard yet — the teams winning at GEO are the ones who built this tracking by hand in Q1 2026.