Knowledge
What is GEO?
Search is growing a second surface: the AI answer. GEO — generative engine optimization — is the discipline of being the business that answer mentions, and it rewards early movers.
Updated 26 July 2026
The short answer
GEO (generative engine optimization) is the practice of making your content the source that AI systems cite when they answer questions: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot and Google’s AI Overviews. The method combines citable content (one question per page, the complete answer first, concrete facts a model can quote), technical access (AI crawlers welcomed, structured data, an llms.txt file, speed) and topical authority (consistent depth around your theme). It extends SEO rather than replacing it — the same clean foundations feed both surfaces.
How AI assistants choose their sources
Assistants that browse retrieve a handful of pages per question and quote the clearest: the page that states the answer completely, early, with facts and dates attached, in a structure that survives being cut into fragments. Assistants answering from memory lean on the sources that dominated their training data around a topic. Both mechanisms reward the same behaviour — publish the best-structured answer in your niche, repeatedly, and become the pattern the machine learned.
GEO in the Dutch market, right now
Dutch-language, Netherlands-specific answers remain scarce in AI systems, which makes this market a land-grab: the accountant, agency or shop that publishes complete Dutch answers today becomes the default citation for years of questions. English answers about the Netherlands — the expat layer — are a second open field. Ovolum runs GEO as a measured programme: baseline what assistants currently answer about your market, build the citable layer, measure the citations monthly.
Frequently asked questions
Is GEO different from AEO and AI SEO?
The labels circle one discipline: AEO (answer engine optimization) stresses the answer format, GEO the generative engines, “AI SEO” the marketing shorthand. Under every label sits the same craft — citable content, technical access, authority.
Should I allow AI crawlers on my website?
For visibility, yes: blocked crawlers mean absent citations. The trade — your content teaches machines, the machines send you customers — currently favours businesses seeking demand. Publishers guarding paid content weigh it differently; a robots.txt makes the choice explicit either way.
How do I measure GEO results?
Ask the assistants your customers’ questions monthly and log which brands and sources appear; watch referral traffic from AI surfaces in your analytics; and track branded searches, which rise as assistants mention you. The trend line, kept honestly, is the KPI.
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