What GEO is, and what it is not
GEO stands for generative engine optimization, also called AI search optimization. It is about your store being found, mentioned and described correctly when a shopper asks an AI a question instead of searching the usual way.
For an online store it is mostly the same work as SEO. AI answers are built from pages that search engines have fetched. A page that cannot be crawled or indexed cannot be used as a source either. Google says there are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews and AI Mode, and that you do not need new files or new markup.
Be sceptical of promises that a particular wording or file will make an AI mention you. Neither Google nor OpenAI promises anything of the kind. What you can control is whether your pages can be read and whether they give good answers.
| Service | What it uses | What you can do |
|---|---|---|
| Google AI Overviews and AI Mode | Google's ordinary index. The page must be indexed and eligible to show with a snippet. | Ordinary SEO. Keep Merchant Center up to date if you use it. |
| ChatGPT search | OAI-SearchBot fetches pages for ChatGPT's search. | Let OAI-SearchBot fetch your pages. |
| ChatGPT shopping | Product feeds from stores. Shopify stores are already included. For now only for users in the US. | Keep your product data complete and correct, and follow along until it reaches your market. |
Make sure AI search can read your pages
First check that you have not closed the door by accident. It can happen in four places.
robots.txt
Search crawlers and training crawlers are different. At OpenAI, OAI-SearchBot fetches pages for ChatGPT's search, while GPTBot fetches text for training models. The settings are independent, so you can refuse training without disappearing from search. OpenAI says a change takes about a day to take effect.
Google-Extended
Google-Extended controls whether Google may use your content for training and in some of Google's other AI systems. Google says it does not affect inclusion or ranking in Google Search.
Cloudflare and other CDNs
If your store sits behind Cloudflare or a similar network, AI crawlers can be blocked there whatever your robots.txt says. The default settings have changed several times, so check what is switched on for search crawlers.
Text rather than images
Google advises keeping important content available as text. Measurements in an image or a size chart in a PDF are hard for any crawler to read.
Write product pages an AI can quote
An AI answers questions like “which hand blender can crush ice” or “which sofa suits a small living room”. The answer is built from pages that contain facts about exactly that. A product page with measurements, material, power, compatibility and what is in the box can serve as a source. A page with two lines of supplier text cannot.
Write things directly and consistently. Use the same product name in the title, the heading and the text. Write numbers with their units. Answer the questions shoppers ask customer service, and put the answer on the product page or in a guide. Never invent features. An AI that repeats a wrong claim about your product does more harm than good.
Guides and buying advice help too. When a shopper asks how to choose, a good guide is an obvious source. Link from the guide to the products and categories it is about.
Keep product data the same everywhere
AI services gather product information from several places: your page, your structured data and product feeds. If the price is one thing on the page and another in the feed, nobody knows which is right.
Check that your structured product data matches what the shopper sees. Google names this directly in its advice on AI features. If you use Merchant Center, keep it up to date. OpenAI says product feeds give merchants more control over how products appear than crawling alone.
The same goes for what is said about your store elsewhere, such as your Google Business Profile, price comparison sites and marketplaces. Name, address, shipping prices and returns should be the same everywhere.
Measure what you can
Clicks from Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode are counted in Search Console under the Web search type. They cannot be separated from the rest, so follow the same pages and searches as you otherwise would.
ChatGPT adds utm_source=chatgpt.com to the links it sends. That means you can see the visits in Google Analytics and similar tools as a source of their own. Make a report that shows visits and purchases from that source over time.
Ask for yourself too. Put the same five to ten questions to ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity once a month, such as “where can I buy … in Denmark”. Note whether your store is mentioned and whether what is said about it is right. The answers vary from time to time, so look at the trend over several months rather than a single answer.
What not to spend time on
Plenty of shortcuts to AI visibility are being sold. Some waste time, and some can do harm.
Special AI files
Google says you do not need new machine-readable files, AI text files or new markup to appear in its AI answers.
Mass-produced AI text
Publishing many pages written for search engines rather than people breaks Google's spam policies, however they were written. Google names generative AI as one example.
Fake reviews and mentions
Fake reviews are banned in the EU, and so is presenting reviews as genuine without checking them. Our guide to what destroys trust explains the rules.
Frequently asked questions
Is GEO different from SEO?
For an online store it is mostly the same work. The difference is that the answer can sit directly in the AI's reply, so the shopper may not click. That makes it even more important that what is said about your products is correct.
Do I need an llms.txt file?
Google says it is not needed for its AI answers. We know of no major service that has committed to using one. Having one does no harm, but spend your time on your product pages first.
Can I block AI without disappearing from Google?
Yes. Google-Extended controls use for training and some of Google's other AI systems, not Google Search. At OpenAI you can block GPTBot and still allow OAI-SearchBot. If you do not want to appear in Google's AI answers, the controls are the same as for snippets in ordinary search, such as nosnippet.