How to Show Up in AI Search

Search is splitting in two. There's the blue-links Google you know, and there's the answer-engine layer — AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Copilot — that increasingly reads your page and summarizes it instead of linking to it. Getting cited there is a different game with different rules. It's called GEO: generative engine optimization.

The good news: most of GEO is just good SEO done with a little more discipline. Here's what actually moves the needle.

Are AI crawlers even let in?

You can't be cited by a model that can't read you. Check your robots.txt — if you're blocking GPTBot, PerplexityBot, Google-Extended, or similar, you've opted out of the answer layer. Decide deliberately. For most businesses that want visibility, you allow them.

Then make sure your content is in the server-rendered HTML. Many AI fetchers don't run JavaScript. If your key text only appears after hydration, the model sees a blank page.

Answer the question in the first two sentences

Classic SEO rewards a slow build-up. GEO punishes it. Answer engines lift passages — a self-contained chunk that answers a question. So lead with the answer, then elaborate.

Instead of "In this article we'll explore the many factors that…", write "The fastest way to X is Y, because Z." That sentence is quotable. A model can lift it cleanly and attribute it to you.

Structure for extraction

• Clear headings phrased as the questions people actually ask.
• Short paragraphs and lists — easy to lift, easy to cite.
• One idea per section, with the conclusion at the top of it.
• Concrete numbers, dates, and named methods. Specificity reads as authority.

Build entity clarity with structured data

AI search engines resolve entities — who you are, what you do, how things relate. Person, Organization, Article, and BreadcrumbList schema (in your server-rendered HTML, not injected late by JS) help a model connect your name to your expertise with confidence. This is the difference between being mentioned and being cited.

What this looks like in practice

This site follows its own advice. It ships a Person and WebSite schema on the homepage, BreadcrumbList and Article/BlogPosting markup on every post, and an llms.txt at the root that summarizes who I am, what I do, and where to find the rest. None of it is exotic — it's the same handful of schema types covered above, applied consistently instead of on just one page. You can check any of it yourself: view source on this page, or fetch /llms.txt directly.

There's a layer beyond even this: letting an AI agent not just read your site but act on it — filling out a form or booking a call on a visitor's behalf. I wrote about that separately in WebMCP, explained.

Does authority still win?

None of this replaces being genuinely good. Models, like Google, lean on signals of trust: real expertise, a consistent identity across the web, being referenced by others. GEO gets you readable and quotable; authority gets you chosen.

The B2B SaaS project I did SEO work for didn't rank because of clever GEO tricks — it ranked because the technical foundation was fixed first (Core Web Vitals, structured data) and the content answered real buyer questions. GEO and classic SEO converged on the same underlying fix, not two different ones.

The GEO checklist

• AI crawlers allowed in robots.txt
• Key content server-rendered (no JS-only text)
• Each page answers its core question in the first 2 sentences
• Headings match real questions; short, liftable passages
• Person/Article structured data present
• A clear, consistent identity across your site and profiles

Frequently asked questions

What is GEO? Generative engine optimization — the practice of getting your content read, quoted, and cited by AI answer engines like Google's AI Overviews, ChatGPT, and Perplexity, rather than just ranked in the classic blue-links results.

Should I block AI crawlers like GPTBot? Only if you don't want to be cited. For most businesses seeking visibility, you allow GPTBot, PerplexityBot, and Google-Extended in robots.txt. Blocking them opts you out of the answer layer entirely.

Is GEO different from regular SEO? It overlaps heavily — the same technical foundation (crawlability, server-rendered content, structured data) powers both. GEO adds discipline: answer-first passages, question-shaped headings, and clear entity signals so a model can lift and attribute your text cleanly.

Do AI Overviews use the same crawler as regular Google Search? Largely yes — AI Overviews draws on Google's existing index, so the technical SEO fundamentals that get a page ranked classically are the same ones that get it surfaced in an AI Overview.

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This is exactly how I approach SEO and GEO for clients. If you're weighing classic SEO against AI search, the underlying technical work overlaps heavily — see Technical SEO for Founders, or let's talk about your site.