AI search optimization, a plain guide for business owners

What is AI search optimization called?

You will see several names for the same work: GEO (generative engine optimization), AEO (answer engine optimization) and LLM SEO. GEO comes from a 2023 research paper that was published at KDD 2024. The name matters less than the work. [1]

Our GEO vs SEO guide shows where this work overlaps with classic SEO and where it splits.

Which crawler reads your site for each AI engine?

Each engine reads the web its own way. Before any engine can quote you, its crawler has to reach your pages.

Blocking a search crawler costs you that engine. OpenAI says sites that block OAI-SearchBot will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers. Perplexity says to allow PerplexityBot so your site appears in its results. Anthropic says blocking Claude-SearchBot may reduce your visibility in Claude’s search results. [5][8][7]

Training crawlers are a separate choice. GPTBot and ClaudeBot collect pages for future models. Blocking them does not take you out of ChatGPT or Claude search, because search uses different crawlers. [5][7]

How do you optimize for AI search?

Five steps, in this order. The first two are technical. The rest is ongoing work.

1. Let the crawlers in. Check your robots.txt and any bot setting at your host or CDN. Since July 2025, Cloudflare asks every new site whether to allow AI crawlers.
2. Put your words in the HTML. Google runs a page’s scripts, but in Vercel’s December 2024 test the main AI crawlers did not. Text that only appears after scripts run can look empty to them.
3. Answer the question at the top of each page. One plain sentence that says what you do, for whom and where. Then short answers to the questions customers really ask.
4. Get named on other sites your customers trust: review sites, directories, local press and trade groups.
5. Keep doing SEO. Google says its generative AI features “are rooted in our core Search ranking and quality systems”.

Each step has its own guide: how to get your business recommended by ChatGPT, what a good SEO score means, and the llms.txt question. Our free check looks at your robots.txt rules for AI crawlers, whether your text is in the HTML, and whether your pages answer questions plainly.

How do you show up in AI search?

Show up where each engine looks. For Google’s AI, that is Google’s own index: Google may run several related searches for one question, then draw on its core ranking. For ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity, it is their own crawlers and the search providers behind them. Then give each engine a sentence worth quoting. [4][6]

Mentions seem to matter, at least for Google. This was measured on Google’s AI Overviews only. In a study of 75,000 brands there, Ahrefs found that how often a brand was mentioned across the web correlated with its visibility at 0.664, against 0.218 for backlinks. That is a correlation, not proof of cause. [12]

What does not work?

• Schema alone. Ahrefs tracked 1,885 pages that were already cited often in Google’s AI Overviews and then added schema. It found “no major uplift in citations on any platform.” In AI Overviews, their citations fell 4.6% against matched pages, a small but statistically significant drop. Google says structured data isn’t required for its generative AI search.
• Counting on an llms.txt file. In May 2026, 97% of about 38,000 llms.txt files got no requests at all, and Google says its Search does not use files like this. It is optional and harmless. More in our llms.txt guide.
• Paying for placement. OpenAI says ads do not influence ChatGPT’s answers.
• Mass-produced pages. Google calls it scaled content abuse when many pages are made mainly to manipulate rankings, not to help people.
• Fake mentions. Google says seeking inauthentic mentions across the web “isn’t as helpful as it might seem”.

How do you measure AI search optimization?

Pick the questions your customers ask an AI. Ask each engine those questions several times, on different days, and write down whether you are named and which sites are cited. Answers change between runs, so one answer proves nothing. Track the share of answers that name you, month by month.

For Google’s AI, Search Console has a Generative AI performance report. It shows impressions: how often links to your site appeared in AI Overviews and AI Mode. For ChatGPT, OpenAI tags the visits it sends with utm_source=chatgpt.com, so they show up as their own source in your analytics. [3][6]

Expect clicks to behave differently too. Pew Research tracked 900 U.S. adults in March 2025. With a Google AI summary on the page, they clicked a regular result in 8% of visits. Without one, they clicked in 15%. [17]

Is SEO still worth it in 2026?

Yes. Google’s own guide says the best practices for SEO stay relevant, because its AI features rest on its core ranking systems. And every AI engine needs pages it can find and read. SEO is the floor that AI search optimization stands on. [11]