Short answer: AI assistants largely compile their answers from sources they can find and read on the web. For your brand to appear in those answers, your site must be open to AI crawlers, who you are and what you do must be described consistently everywhere, and your content must answer questions directly with information that can be cited.
Where do AI assistants get their answers?
ChatGPT's search feature, Perplexity and Google's AI Overviews answer a question by scanning current pages on the web, reading a few sources and summarizing them into a response. In most cases, they also link to the sources they used.
That is why the foundation of GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) is not disconnected from classic SEO: a page that cannot be crawled, understood or trusted cannot make it into AI answers either. The difference is that the focus shifts from ranking to being selected. AI does not list ten results; it picks a few sources and builds its sentences from them.
Step 1: Is your site open to AI crawlers?
The first thing to check is your robots.txt file. Each platform's crawler comes with a different name:
| Crawler | Platform | What is it used for? |
|---|---|---|
| OAI-SearchBot | OpenAI | Getting your page found in ChatGPT search |
| GPTBot | OpenAI | Collecting content for model training |
| PerplexityBot | Perplexity | Being shown as a source in Perplexity answers |
| Googlebot | Google Search and AI Overviews | |
| Google-Extended | Use of your content in Gemini models (does not affect Search rankings) |
It is possible to block training-related crawling while keeping search-related crawling open. What matters is making this decision deliberately and not accidentally blocking the search crawler of a platform where you want to be visible. CDN or firewall rules can also silently block these bots, so check your server logs.
Step 2: Is your brand identity consistent?
AI models try to understand a brand as an "entity": its name, what it does, where it operates and who it is associated with. If this information differs from place to place, the model cannot be certain and avoids mentioning your brand.
- Your company name, address and phone number (NAP) should be exactly the same on your website, your Google Business Profile and your social accounts.
- Your homepage should include Organization or LocalBusiness structured data, with your official social accounts listed in the
sameAsfield. - Your "About us" page should clearly explain who you are in a single paragraph.
Step 3: Does your content answer the question directly?
When AI quotes a page, it looks for a quotable sentence. Content that starts with long introductions and buries the answer in the middle of the page loses this race.
- Write the heading the way the user would ask the question.
- Give a clear two- or three-sentence answer in the first paragraph.
- Then add the details, examples and exceptions.
- Present comparisons as tables and steps as numbered lists.
Step 4: Can your information be cited?
Claims like "the best in the industry" are worthless to AI; verifiable information, on the other hand, is valuable. Your scope of services, process steps, delivery times, pricing logic, technologies used and real project examples should be written in concrete, dated form. Linking to the original source for any data you take from elsewhere also increases credibility.
Step 5: Are people talking about you beyond your own site?
AI assistants do not look only at your website. Industry directories, news sites, your partners' pages, Google reviews and forums are also sources of information about your brand. Being mentioned consistently and positively in these sources is GEO's slowest but most lasting lever.
Do you need an llms.txt file?
llms.txt is a proposed format for a text file that summarizes a site's important pages for language models. It is not yet an official standard, and Google has explicitly stated that it does not use this file. Adding one does no harm and some tools can read it, but it is no substitute for the steps above.
How do you measure the results of GEO work?
- A fixed question set: Define 20–30 questions your customers might ask, put the same questions to ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity every month, and record whether your brand appears.
- Referral traffic: In Google Analytics, track visits coming from chatgpt.com, perplexity.ai and gemini.google.com separately.
- Accuracy: If your brand is mentioned, is the information correct? If you see a wrong service or an old address, find the source and fix it.
How does your brand appear in AI answers? With our SEO / GEO / AEO service, we measure where you stand today and build an improvement plan together with you.
Sources
Frequently Asked Questions
No. Because AI assistants also rely on crawlable, trustworthy pages on the web, a good SEO foundation is a prerequisite for GEO. GEO builds on that foundation by making content quotable and keeping brand information consistent.
GPTBot crawls for model training. Visibility in ChatGPT search relies on OpenAI's OAI-SearchBot crawler. You can block training while keeping search open; the two are managed separately in robots.txt.
Once technical access issues are fixed, the impact can be seen within a few weeks. Brand consistency and mentions in external sources, however, build up over months, so progress should be tracked with monthly measurement.