Visibility in AI Overviews, AI Mode and generative search, grounded in Google’s published guidance.
Generative engine optimization (GEO) is the practice of making content more likely to be used and cited inside AI-generated answers. What the 2023 study that named it actually tested and found, what Google says about AI Overviews and AI Mode, and a worked example of the visibility metric showing why where you are cited matters as much as whether.
llms.txt is a proposed Markdown file that gives AI agents a curated map of your best pages. Google says it will neither harm nor help you in Search. Here is what the specification requires, what Google has published, and what the file weighs on a real 40-post site.
Google’s documentation states there is no special schema.org markup needed to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode. Here is what the docs actually say, what schema still does for you, and the markup that earns its place.
Whether ChatGPT can cite you is decided in your robots.txt, not your content. Here is what each of OpenAI’s four documented crawlers does, the one line that quietly removes you from ChatGPT search, and the configuration most publishers actually want.
AEO is the practice of getting your content used in a generated answer rather than a list of links. Google’s position is that this is still SEO. Here is what the label usefully names, what it does not, and how to price it honestly.
AI Overviews cite what Google’s ranking systems retrieve. Here is how grounding and query fan-out work, a table of GEO tactics against Google’s published position, and what actually moves citations.