GEO Handbook

GEO Handbook: visible in ChatGPT, Google AI Mode and co.

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO), also called AI SEO or AEO, in five parts: how AI search builds answers, what has to be right technically, which content gets cited and how to measure your visibility. Free, no sign-up, continuously updated.

By Bernard Zitzer · Updated: October 2026

// how an AI answer is created PROMPT  "Which SEO consultant in Berlin?"     │     ▼QUERY FAN-OUT  ├─ seo consultant berlin  ├─ seo consultant reviews  └─ seo agency comparison     │     ▼SOURCES  ▸ your website  ▸ best-of lists and articles  ▸ reviews and forums     │     ▼ANSWER  ✓ Mention  ✓ Citation  ✓ Sentiment▍

What you should know

  • AI search does not list ten links, it summarizes an answer.
  • Visibility there is a probability, not a fixed position.
  • AI models assess brands as entities, not individual pages.
  • What others write about you shapes the answer too.
  • GEO builds on SEO and does not replace it.

The five parts

Read the handbook from the start or jump straight to the part you are working on. Chapters you have read get a checkmark.

Part 1

Foundations

What GEO is, how AI search works and what changes compared with SEO.

  1. 01What is GEO?
  2. 02The search market in 2026
  3. 03How AI search builds answers
  4. 04Visibility without rankings
  5. 05GEO vs. SEO
  6. 06GEO at a glance
  7. 07GEO glossary

Part 2

Technical

The foundation: how AI systems retrieve content and what your website needs for it.

  1. 08RAG, grounding and query fan-out
  2. 09Allow or block AI crawlers
  3. 10llms.txt: do you need it?

Part 3

Content

Which content AI models understand, adopt and cite.

  1. 11Entities instead of keywords in progress
  2. 12Entity map: your brand as a map
  3. 13GEO optimization: content that AI cites in progress
  4. 14AI for rankings: when yes, when no in progress

Part 4

Reputation

Why mentions, best-of lists and reviews decide your visibility.

  1. 15Mentions, best-of lists and reviews in progress

Part 5

Measure and implement

How to measure visibility in AI answers and in what order to proceed.

  1. 16Measuring AI visibility
  2. 17Choosing the right prompts in progress
  3. 18GEO tools compared in progress
  4. 19GEO checklist in progress

The key terms

The eight terms you will meet most often in the handbook.

Mention
Your brand is named in an AI answer, with or without a link.
Citation
The AI links a source for its answer. Directly if it is your page. Indirectly if a third-party page that names you is cited.
Sentiment
How the AI talks about your brand: positive, neutral or negative.
Share of Voice
Your share of all brand mentions on a topic, compared with your competitors.
Prompt
The question someone asks an AI assistant. In GEO, what the keyword is in SEO.
Query Fan-Out
The AI splits a question into several sub-searches and merges their results into one answer.
RAG
Retrieval augmented generation: before answering, the model fetches current content from a search or database.
Grounding
The AI bases its answer on retrieved sources rather than only on its trained knowledge. Only then are citations created.

All 16 terms in the GEO glossary

Rather get it done?

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