Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)
The short answer
Generative Engine Optimization, or GEO, is the practice of shaping your content so generative AI systems can retrieve it, quote it, and attribute it to you. Where AEO focuses on becoming the recommended answer, GEO focuses on how your content is written, chunked, and structured so a generative model can use it cleanly.
What is GEO?
GEO is optimization for models that generate text rather than return links. It covers how you phrase claims, how you structure headings, how you cite evidence, and how easily a passage can be lifted and attributed.
How is GEO different from AEO?
They overlap heavily and most agents can treat them as one workstream. If you want the distinction: AEO is about being the recommended entity, GEO is about being the quotable source.
In practice you do both with the same work. Clear question-based headings, short direct answers up top, evidence below, and schema that labels what each block is.
What makes content easy for a generative engine to use?
Short sentences. One idea per paragraph. A direct answer within the first 80 words. Specific numbers and named sources. Headings written as the questions people actually ask.