What is GEO?
If your brand doesn't show up when someone asks ChatGPT or Perplexity for a recommendation in your space, you're invisible to a rapidly growing segment of buyers. Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is a practice for investigating and improving that visibility.
The shift: search to AI answers
For 25 years, search worked the same way. A user typed a query, Google returned a list of links, and the user clicked through. SEO was about getting your link as high as possible on that list.
That model is breaking down. Today, millions of people ask ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Google's AI Overviews for direct answers. These AI models don't return a list of links: they synthesize an answer and cite their sources. If your brand isn't one of those sources, you're not in the conversation.
GEO is the practice of making your brand appear in AI-generated answers.
What AI models need to recommend you
AI models aren't random. They follow patterns when deciding which brands to mention. There are three core signals:
1. authority
The model needs evidence that your brand is legitimate and trusted. This comes from press coverage, high-authority websites mentioning you, and consistent brand information across directories.
2. consensus
Multiple independent sources need to say good things about you. If Reddit threads, Quora answers, review sites, and news articles all mention your brand positively, the AI model has "consensus" that you're worth recommending.
3. recency
Current, accurate information can matter when an AI system retrieves sources. A newer page is not automatically preferred to an older authoritative source. Keep facts up to date and inspect the sources returned for your actual prompts.
How GEO differs from SEO in one sentence
SEO gets your website ranked in Google's link list. GEO gets your brand named in AI models' answers. They use different signals, target different surfaces, and require different tactics, but they amplify each other.
In Outrigger
Outrigger is built from the ground up for GEO. Every module maps to a specific GEO signal:
- Sonar tracks whether AI models mention your brand (your Share of Model score)
- Citations finds relevant forum threads and prepares useful responses for human review
- Entity ensures your brand identity is consistent across every platform AI models check
- On-Page makes your site easier for AI crawlers to understand and quote
- Press prepares earned-media campaigns that can build independent authority
- Reviews supports the review workflows and trust signals that AI models weight
The current full AI Visibility Audit covers five eligible areas. Press remains a separate learning topic and is excluded from scoring. Review scope, coverage, and evidence before deciding what to work on.