By Aaron Henry, Managing Director, Foundeast
When ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity began changing how people discover information, a new acronym quickly appeared across the marketing industry: GEO, or Generative Engine Optimisation.
Some agencies immediately declared that “SEO is dead.”
Others simply rebranded their SEO services as GEO.
Neither is correct.
While SEO and GEO both aim to increase discoverability, they solve fundamentally different problems. Businesses that treat them as interchangeable risk investing in the wrong strategy—and missing opportunities across both traditional search and AI-powered discovery.
SEO Optimises for Rankings. GEO Optimises for Recommendations.
Traditional SEO exists to improve visibility inside search engine results.
Its objectives include:
- Ranking for Target Keywords
- Increasing Organic Traffic
- Improving Click-Through Rate
- Building Technical Website Health
- Growing Backlink Authority
- Creating Indexable Content
Ultimately, SEO asks one question:
How do we persuade Google that our page deserves to rank?
GEO asks a very different question.
How do we become one of the sources AI systems trust enough to recommend without sending users to a search results page?
That distinction changes almost everything.
SEO Optimises Pages. GEO Optimises Brand Authority.
Google indexes webpages.
Large language models synthesise knowledge from thousands of trusted sources.
When someone asks:
“Who are the best PR agencies in Thailand?”
The AI isn’t simply selecting Page One results.
It is evaluating signals across:
- Editorial Coverage
- Brand Mentions
- Industry Authority
- Topical Expertise
- Trusted Publications
- Website Structure
- Consistency Across Sources
- Reputation Signals
In other words, GEO is far more about entity authority than individual pages.
SEO Is Technical. GEO Is Reputational.
SEO has always relied heavily on technical optimisation.
Typical SEO activities include:
- Site Speed
- Crawlability
- Internal Linking
- Schema Markup
- XML Sitemaps
- Canonicalisation
- Keyword Optimisation
- Meta Data
These remain essential.
Without them, your website may struggle to rank.
But none of them automatically makes ChatGPT recommend your company.
GEO depends much more heavily on external authority.
That means activities such as:
- Earned Media
- Thought Leadership
- Expert Commentary
- Industry Citations
- High-Quality Editorial Links
- Consistent Brand Positioning
- Author Credibility
- Third-Party Validation
Ironically, many of these activities have traditionally been delivered by PR agencies rather than SEO agencies.
SEO Measures Traffic. GEO Measures Inclusion.
Traditional SEO success is relatively easy to measure.
You can monitor:
- Rankings
- Organic Sessions
- Impressions
- Clicks
- Conversions
GEO requires different metrics.
Instead of asking:
“Did users click?”
You ask:
- Does ChatGPT recommend our company?
- Does Gemini cite our content?
- Does Perplexity reference our research?
- Are we appearing in AI Overviews?
- Is our expertise being attributed correctly?
- How often does our brand appear across AI-generated answers?
The objective shifts from generating clicks to becoming part of the answer itself.
SEO Creates Content. GEO Creates Evidence.
One of the biggest misconceptions is that publishing more blog articles automatically improves GEO.
Quantity alone rarely builds authority.
AI systems place greater weight on evidence than volume.
That evidence includes:
- Independent Media Coverage
- Research
- Original Data
- Published Expertise
- Interviews
- Conference Speaking
- Industry Awards
- Government References
- Academic Citations
- High-Authority Mentions
This is why PR has become increasingly important to AI discoverability.
Every credible third-party mention strengthens the knowledge graph surrounding a business.
SEO Is Mostly On-Site. GEO Extends Far Beyond Your Website.
Many companies still think their website is the centre of their digital presence.
Increasingly, it isn’t.
AI systems learn from an ecosystem that includes:
- News Media
- Trade Publications
- Podcasts
- Videos
- LinkedIn Articles
- Industry Reports
- Company Websites
- Public Documents
- Trusted Databases
Your website remains important—but it becomes one source among many.
SEO and GEO Are Stronger Together
Perhaps the biggest misconception is that companies should choose one.
In reality, effective digital discoverability requires both.
|
SEO |
GEO |
|
Improves Search Rankings |
Improves AI Recommendations |
|
Optimises Webpages |
Builds Brand Authority |
|
Generates Organic Traffic |
Generates AI Visibility |
|
Technical Foundation |
Reputation Foundation |
|
Keyword-Focused |
Entity-Focused |
|
Google-Centric |
Multi-AI Ecosystem |
Neither replaces the other.
Instead, they reinforce each other.
Strong SEO helps AI systems understand your website.
Strong GEO gives AI systems reasons to trust your brand.
Together, they create a discoverability strategy suited to how people now search—whether through Google, ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, or the next generation of AI assistants.
The Future of Discoverability Requires Both Disciplines
The rise of AI has not made SEO obsolete.
Nor has it turned GEO into simply “SEO with a new name.”
They are different disciplines addressing different stages of digital discovery.
Businesses that recognise this distinction early will be better positioned to remain visible wherever customers seek information.
Those that don’t may discover that ranking well on Google no longer guarantees being recommended by AI.
As search continues to evolve, the most successful organisations won’t be asking whether they need SEO or GEO.
They’ll be asking how the two can work together to build lasting authority, trust, and discoverability.
At Foundeast, we’ve been applying both SEO and GEO principles to our own digital strategy. Read our case study, Building for Discoverability: Four Principles That Delivered 430% Organic Growth for Foundeast, to see how an integrated approach helped significantly increase our organic discoverability.