GEO & AEO
Structuring a site so tools like AI Overviews, ChatGPT and Perplexity cite the business rather than summarising a competitor.
What is the difference between this and SEO?
Target, not technique. Classic SEO optimises for a ranked list of links. Answer and generative engine optimisation optimises to be the source a model quotes when it composes a response. The same signals matter: structure, schema, an entity a search engine can identify, and how Google AI Overviews reads them, but the winning shape of a page changes: a direct answer first, the expansion after, and a closing line clean enough to lift verbatim.
What actually makes a page citable?
A question a person would really ask, answered in one sentence before any qualification. Factual claims that can be checked. Consistent naming of the business, its people, its address and its services everywhere they appear, so the entity resolves to one thing rather than three. Worth knowing that Google retired FAQ rich results in May 2026, so marking questions up no longer wins you anything in search. The questions still matter, because they are what gets quoted back in an answer. The markup was never the point.
Does llms.txt matter?
It is not a ranking factor and nobody should pretend otherwise. llms.txt proposal is a cheap, honest way to tell a model what a site is and which pages matter, in the same spirit as robots.txt. It costs an afternoon.
How is it measured?
Imperfectly. Impressions and position still come from Search Console, but citation in an AI answer largely does not report. The practical measure is brand mention volume and whether the business appears when the obvious questions are asked directly of the tools.