Generative engine optimization (GEO) is the work of making your content easy for AI answer engines to find, trust and quote. Those engines include ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude and Google's AI Overviews, all of which write an answer from several web pages and link some of them. Most writing on GEO targets publishers and software brands. This explainer starts from the original research and Google's own guidance, then sorts what matters for a local practice from what doesn't.
In short: GEO means making your content easy for AI answer engines to find, trust and quote. The 2023 study that named it found that adding cited sources, quotations and statistics raised a page's visibility in AI answers, while keyword stuffing did not. For a practice, that means sourced answers to patient questions and consistent practice details everywhere.
What GEO is, in one paragraph
A generative engine takes a question, searches for relevant pages, and writes one answer drawn from several of them, often with links. GEO is the effort to be one of those pages, and to be represented accurately when you are. Classic SEO asks "do we rank?"; GEO asks "are we used in the answer, and is what it says about us right?" For a practice, "the answer" is often a short list of recommended clinics, so GEO overlaps heavily with local search and reputation.
"Geo" also means geography, so not every search below is about marketing.
| Search (US, monthly) | Volume |
|---|---|
| what is geo | 5,400 |
| generative engine optimization | 4,400 |
| geo seo | 2,400 |
| what is generative engine optimization | 1,300 |
| ai search optimization | 1,300 |
Google Ads Keyword Planner data via DataForSEO, US, 12-month average to Sep 2026. "generative engine optimization" has a DataForSEO keyword difficulty of 54.
Before changing anything, run the free marketing audit to see where you stand.
Where the term comes from: the original research
The term comes from "GEO: Generative Engine Optimization (opens in a new tab)" by Pranjal Aggarwal, Vishvak Murahari, Tanmay Rajpurohit, Ashwin Kalyan, Karthik Narasimhan and Ameet Deshpande. It was first posted to arXiv on November 16, 2023 and accepted to the KDD 2024 conference.
What the authors did:
- Built GEO-bench, a benchmark of 10,000 queries from many domains, health among them.
- Rewrote source pages nine different ways, including adding citations to credible sources, adding quotations, adding statistics, making the tone more authoritative, simplifying the language and stuffing in query keywords.
- Measured how much of each source made it into the generated answer, and how prominently.
What they found:
- Cite Sources, Quotation Addition and Statistics Addition worked best, with a 30–40% relative improvement on their word-count visibility metric and 15–30% on their subjective-impression metric.
- Keyword stuffing offered little to no improvement. Tested on Perplexity.ai, it performed 10% worse than doing nothing.
- On Perplexity.ai, the best methods improved visibility by up to 37%.
- Lower-ranked pages gained most. When every source was optimized, citing sources raised visibility by 115.1% for pages ranked fifth in search, while the top-ranked page lost 30.3% on average.
- Results varied by domain, so no single tactic works everywhere.
Keep the limits in mind. This was a lab benchmark of mostly informational questions, run on 2023-era engines, and an LLM did the rewriting. It did not study local recommendations such as "best cardiologist in Tucson", and "visibility" meant share of the answer text, not phone calls.
How generative engines build an answer
Most assistants follow the same pattern, which engineers call retrieval-augmented generation:
- Interpret the question. "Pediatric dentist near me that takes Medicaid" becomes a location, a specialty and an insurance constraint.
- Search. Google describes a "query fan-out" technique: AI Overviews and AI Mode may issue multiple related searches across subtopics and data sources (Google Search Central (opens in a new tab)).
- Retrieve and read pages. Only pages the engine can reach and read are in the running.
- Write and cite. The model drafts an answer and attaches links to supporting pages.
Step 3 is where many practices fall out. Google says a page must be indexed and eligible for a snippet to appear as a link in its AI features, and that there are no additional technical requirements. If your service pages are thin, blocked or missing, nothing later in the chain can include them.
GEO for a local practice: what actually applies
The research studied informational questions. A local practice cares about two kinds of question: informational ones ("how long does a crown take") and recommendation ones ("best dentist in Boise for crowns"). Here's how GEO ideas translate:
| GEO idea | Applies to a practice? | How |
|---|---|---|
| Cite credible sources | Yes | Link clinical statements to MedlinePlus, PubMed or your specialty body |
| Add statistics | Only if real | Use sourced figures; never invent numbers to sound authoritative |
| Add quotations | Sometimes | Quote a guideline or your own clinician, attributed |
| Keyword stuffing | No | It didn't work in the study and reads badly to patients |
| A page for every query variant | No | Google calls mass-produced pages scaled content abuse |
| Consistent practice details | Yes | Recommendation answers are built from listings and pages about you |
| Reviews | Yes, for recommendations | Patients and assistants both read them |
Content that answers patient questions with sources
Google's generative AI guide asks for non-commodity content, meaning "unique expert or experienced takes that go beyond common knowledge" (Google Search Central (opens in a new tab)). A practice has that by default: your clinicians know how you do things, what patients worry about, and what the first visit is like.
Practical rules:
- Lead with the answer, then explain. Two or three sentences a model can quote cleanly.
- Cite clinical facts to MedlinePlus (opens in a new tab), the National Library of Medicine's patient-facing service with no advertising, or PubMed (opens in a new tab), which indexes more than 40 million citations of biomedical literature.
- Add what only you know: which insurers you take, typical wait for a new-patient visit, which hospital your surgeons operate at.
- Show who reviewed it and when. A dated review line tells patients and machines the page is maintained.
Illustrative example: A fictional orthopedic practice replaces "We offer comprehensive knee care" with: "Our three surgeons perform partial and total knee replacements at Mercy West Hospital. New patients are usually seen within 10 business days. We accept Medicare and most Blue Cross plans."
How Medfy handles content
Medfy's automated SEO drafts researched articles every week from MedlinePlus and PubMed. The practice approves each one, or chooses to auto-publish.
Entity signals: consistent name, address and services
An "entity" is your practice as a thing that search systems recognize across sources: one name, one address, one phone number, a set of services and the clinicians who provide them. When those details match everywhere, an assistant can connect your website, your Google profile and your reviews as the same practice.
- Match the basics everywhere: website footer, Google Business Profile, Bing and Apple listings, insurer directories and health directories.
- Use structured data. Google recommends marking each location as a LocalBusiness using "the most specific LocalBusiness sub-type possible" (Google Search Central (opens in a new tab)); Schema.org defines medical types such as MedicalClinic (opens in a new tab). Our guide to schema markup for practices covers the details. Be realistic: Google says structured data isn't required for its generative AI features and keeps no special AI markup.
- Keep your Business Profile current. Google's guide says Business Profiles can help your services be visible in AI responses.
Every website Medfy rebuilds includes structured data as standard.
GEO myths to ignore
- "You need an llms.txt file." Google says Search ignores these files: they neither help nor harm your visibility in Google Search.
- "Break content into tiny chunks for AI." Google says there's no requirement to do this.
- "There's special AI schema." Google says there is no special schema.org markup for generative AI search.
- "Get mentioned everywhere, fast." Google says seeking inauthentic mentions across the web "isn't as helpful as it might seem."
- "GEO replaces SEO." Google's position is that optimizing for its AI features is still SEO. Our page on how GEO differs from SEO sets them side by side.
- "A tool can put you in the answer." Google says no third-party tool has access to its internal ranking or AI systems.
No one can promise an assistant will name your practice. Answers vary by phrasing, location and day.
Measuring GEO results
Measure three things, weekly:
- Mentions. Run a fixed set of patient prompts in each assistant and log whether you're named, in what position, and who appears instead.
- Citations. Note which pages each answer links. Our guide to AI citations explains what practices can realistically be cited for.
- Visits. Count referrals from assistants in your analytics, and check Search Console's generative AI performance report (opens in a new tab), which shows impressions when links to your site appear in AI Overviews and AI Mode.
The companion technique, answer engine optimization, covers writing the answers themselves. For automated monitoring, compare AI visibility tools by assistants covered, location control and history. The wider picture is in AI visibility for practices.
Where Medfy fits
Medfy's AI visibility tracking runs weekly checks of ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews with the questions patients ask, and shows whether you're named and who is recommended instead. To see where you stand first, the free marketing audit scores your AI visibility and checks whether AI crawlers can read your site.
Frequently asked questions
What does GEO stand for in marketing?
GEO stands for generative engine optimization: shaping your content so AI systems that write answers, such as ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews, use it and cite it. The term comes from a 2023 research paper by Aggarwal and colleagues, accepted to KDD 2024. Outside marketing, "geo" usually means geography or geotargeting, so check the context when you see it.
Is GEO replacing SEO?
No. Google says optimizing for its generative AI features is still SEO, because those features rest on its core ranking and quality systems. AI answers change how results look and how you measure them, but the base is the same: crawlable pages, clear answers, accurate listings and a good reputation. Treat GEO as an extra layer of measurement and content work on top of SEO.
Does GEO work for local businesses like medical practices?
Partly. The original research studied informational questions, not local recommendations. For a practice, the transferable lessons are to cite credible sources, answer patient questions directly and keep your name, address and services consistent everywhere. Recommendation answers also lean on listings and reviews. GEO can improve your odds of being named, but answers still vary by phrasing, location and day.
How do I measure generative engine optimization?
Track three things weekly. Mentions: run the same patient prompts in each assistant and log whether you're named and who appears instead. Citations: note which of your pages are linked. Visits: count referrals from assistants in analytics and check Search Console's generative AI report for AI Overview and AI Mode impressions. Judge trends over several weeks, not single runs.