GEO GLOSSARY
Adjusting a website’s content, structure and public information so AI systems are more likely to cite and recommend it when answering user questions.
SEO optimizes for ranking algorithms that crawl, index and rank pages against a query. GEO optimizes for a model that reads a handful of retrieved sources and synthesizes an answer in its own words. Many SEO fundamentals still matter — crawlability, clear structure, accurate facts — but the goal shifts from "rank higher" to "become a source worth citing and a name worth recommending."
Clear, factual pricing and comparison pages; explicit answers to the specific questions buyers ask (rather than only marketing copy); structured data that removes ambiguity about what a page is about; and keeping information current, since models increasingly ground answers in recently retrieved content rather than stale memorized facts.
No tactic guarantees a citation or a recommendation. A page a model never retrieves cannot influence its answer, and a provider that does not use live retrieval for a given query will not see recent changes at all. Treat GEO as improving your odds, not as buying a placement.
See how these terms are used in practice in MagRank AI’s methodology.
