Optimizing for AI Search (GEO & LLMO): Ranking in ChatGPT & Claude
By Search & Semantic Intelligence Team · 5 min read · 22 October 2026 · Updated 10 November 2026
Users are increasingly bypassing traditional Google search results in favour of direct conversational synthesis in Perplexity, ChatGPT Search, and Claude Artifacts. If your brand is not indexed in their semantic knowledge graphs, you simply do not exist.
Generative engine optimisation (GEO, also called LLMO) means making your business easy for AI assistants to find, understand and cite. In practice it builds on good SEO: crawlable pages, clear facts stated plainly, consistent business details across the web, structured data that matches the page, and mentions on other reputable sites. Google says there are no special requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, and OpenAI separates its search crawler from its training crawler, so check your robots.txt allows the ones you want.
The Mechanics of Generative Engine Optimization
Generative search engines evaluate web pages using retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) rather than PageRank link equity. To win citations, sites must align with 3 pillars:
- Entity Clarity: Use unambiguous JSON-LD schema linking your organization to Wikidata, Crunchbase, and government entity registries.
- Fact Density: LLMs extract high-density tables, direct statistics, and clear definitions over long fluffy introductions.
- Crawl Accessibility: Ensure your robots.txt allows GPTBot, PerplexityBot, and ClaudeBot to scrape clean semantic HTML without client-side rendering hurdles.
What GEO actually means
When someone asks ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude or Perplexity a question, the assistant may search the web, pick sources and write an answer that names a few businesses or links to a few pages. GEO is the work of making your pages a good source for that answer. It's not a separate trick. Mostly it's making your site clearer, more factual and easier to crawl.
What the platforms themselves say
Google’s documentation on AI features says the best practices for SEO remain relevant for AI features in Google Search, such as AI Overviews and AI Mode, and that there are no additional requirements or special optimisations needed to appear in them.
OpenAI’s crawler documentation describes separate robots.txt user agents. OAI-SearchBot is used for search, and OpenAI recommends allowing it if you want your site to appear in ChatGPT search results. GPTBot relates to training OpenAI's foundation models, and each setting is independent, so a site can allow OAI-SearchBot while disallowing GPTBot. OpenAI notes it can take around 24 hours for its systems to adjust after a robots.txt change.
A robots.txt that allows search crawling but not training might look like this:
User-agent: OAI-SearchBot
Allow: /
User-agent: GPTBot
Disallow: /Check each AI provider's current documentation before changing your file because bot names and behaviour change.
A practical GEO checklist
- Make pages crawlable. Important content in the HTML, not only loaded by scripts; no accidental blocks in robots.txt.
- Answer the question early. Put a short, direct answer near the top, then the detail.
- State facts plainly. Services, areas served, prices or price factors, opening hours, credentials. Assistants can't cite what you never wrote down
- Keep business details consistent on your site, Google Business Profile, directories and social profiles.
- Use structured data that matches the page: Organization, LocalBusiness, Article, FAQPage, Product where relevant.
- Build one clear page per topic instead of many thin pages that compete with each other.
- Earn mentions elsewhere: reviews, industry directories, press, partners. Assistants often lean on what others say about you.
- Keep content current, with visible dates, and remove or update outdated claims.
GEO vs traditional SEO
| Traditional SEO | GEO / AI search | |
|---|---|---|
| Outcome | A ranking and a click | A mention, a citation, sometimes a click |
| Unit | The page | Facts and passages within pages |
| What helps | Relevance, quality, links, technical health | The same, plus clear statements assistants can quote |
| Measurement | Search Console rankings and clicks | Repeated prompt checks, citations, referral visits |
Myths to ignore
- “There's a secret file that gets you into ChatGPT.” Files like llms.txt can make content easier to access (we publish one) but they aren't a proven shortcut to being recommended.
- “Keyword stuffing for AI.” Repeating phrases makes pages worse for people, and doesn't make them more quotable.
- “AI search makes SEO irrelevant.” Google itself says SEO best practices still apply to its AI features.
- “You can guarantee a recommendation.” Nobody can. Answers vary by question, settings and over time.
How to measure AI visibility
Keep a fixed list of buyer questions, ask them on a regular schedule in fresh chats, and record whether you're named, how you're described and which pages are cited. Separately track referral visits from AI tools in your analytics. We explain a simple method in what Singapore SMEs should measure now, and why rankings and AI mentions can differ in ranking on Google but invisible in ChatGPT.
Want a structured review of how assistants describe your business? See our consulting services or get in touch.
Frequently asked questions
They are two names for the same idea: making your content easy for AI systems built on large language models to find, understand and cite. GEO stands for generative engine optimisation and LLMO for large language model optimisation.
Google’s documentation says there are no additional requirements or special optimisations needed to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, and that SEO best practices remain relevant.
That depends on whether you are comfortable with your content being used to train OpenAI’s models. OpenAI’s documentation says GPTBot and OAI-SearchBot are controlled separately, so you can block GPTBot and still allow OAI-SearchBot for ChatGPT search.
It can make your content easier for AI tools to read, but there is no proof it leads to recommendations on its own. Clear pages, consistent facts and mentions on other sites matter more.