GEO (generative engine optimization)
Generative engine optimization makes a site easy for an AI answer engine to retrieve, verify and cite: clear answers, entity facts, schema and bot access.
Published · Reviewed
What GEO covers
GEO is the part of search work that happens before an answer is written. An answer engine retrieves passages, checks them against other sources and cites what it can attribute. The retrievable material is the page itself: a direct answer near the top, facts stated in full sentences, dates and numbers with their source, structured data that names the entity, and a crawl policy that lets the engine’s bot in.
What it does not control
GEO does not decide whether a model cites a page. Models choose sources with their own mix of retrieval, freshness and authority, and those choices change between products and over time. A site can make itself legible without being chosen. A citation is a measurement recorded over repeated prompts, not a switch that flips.
Where it fits in the product
SiteBienfait treats GEO as a list of checks and changes: answer blocks, entity facts, schema, crawler access and citation probes. Each change is written in a sandbox, reviewed, and published only after approval. The GEO intent page lists the checks and the evidence behind each one.
A test worth repeating
Take a question a customer actually asks. If the answer cannot be quoted from one paragraph on the page, rewrite the paragraph. If the paragraph has no date or source, add them. Run the same question again next month and compare what came back.
Related terms
- AI citation
An AI citation is a visible reference to a page in an answer written by a language model. It is measured with repeated prompts; no site controls it.
- llms.txt
llms.txt is a plain-text file proposed at a site's root to summarise it for language models and link key pages. It is a convention, not a standard.
- Core Web Vitals
Core Web Vitals are Google page-experience metrics — Largest Contentful Paint, Interaction to Next Paint, Cumulative Layout Shift — measured on real devices.
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All terms