Comparison
GEO vs SEO: complement or replacement?
How GEO (optimising for AI answers) differs from classic SEO, what they share, and why you should do both — from one technical effort.
In short
GEO doesn’t replace SEO — it complements it, and dominates wherever the answer comes from an AI rather than a results list. The good news: both are largely done by one technical effort, so the “either/or” choice is false.
What each is
- SEO (Search Engine Optimization) — getting into the classic Google and Yandex results: keyword ranking, links, speed, indexing.
- GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) — getting into AI answers: ChatGPT Search, Perplexity, Google AI Overview, YandexGPT. Here what matters is how easily a model finds, understands, and cites your content.
Side by side
| SEO | GEO | |
|---|---|---|
| Where it shows | A list of links in results | The text of an AI answer |
| Unit of success | Position / click | A citation in the answer |
| What matters | Keywords, links, speed | Structure, machine-readability, freshness |
| Tools | robots.txt, sitemap, Schema.org | + llms.txt, Markdown for Agents, ai-agent.json |
| Measurement | GSC / Yandex (impressions, position) | Bot log parsing + AI mentions |
Key differences
- Unit of success. SEO fights for a click on a link; GEO fights to be cited directly in the answer (there may be no click at all).
- Who’s reading. In SEO, a crawler for the index; in GEO, an LLM that needs dense, clean, structured input (Schema.org, Markdown for Agents).
- Freshness. AI answers weight recency — hence the role of
lastmodand updated content.
Can you do both at once
Yes — and it’s the recommended path. Most GEO work also strengthens SEO:
robots.txt+ sitemap → found by both search engines and AI crawlers;- Schema.org → both Google rich results and grounding in AI answers;
- clean structure and speed → a plus for both.
GEO adds specifics on top: llms.txt, Markdown
versions, ai-agent.json. One technical effort covers
two channels.
Takeaway
Not “GEO or SEO,” but “SEO plus GEO.” If you invest in the technical foundation (robots, sitemap, Schema.org), you’re already serving both; add the GEO specifics to dominate AI results without losing the classic ones.
How to check where you stand
A free scan shows both sides: classic signals and agent/GEO standards — in one report with a 0-100 score.