On 14 September 2026, I asked Perplexity two questions. The first: “What is editorial engineering?” Its answer cited three articles from our site, with the links. The second: “Which editorial agencies are there in France?” WeAreTheWords did not appear in the answer. This time the sources were agency websites and the rankings those agencies publish themselves.
So the same engine cited the agency as a source on a subject, without naming it among the suppliers. The two questions do not draw on the same sources.
What GEO is
Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is the work that makes content findable and quotable by generative engines. These engines answer a question with written text, often with links to their sources. ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot and Google’s AI Overviews are among them.
The term comes from a study by six researchers, Pranjal Aggarwal and his co-authors. Submitted in November 2023, it was presented in 2024 at KDD, the international conference on data mining. The authors measure a source’s visibility by the number of words in the answer that draw on it, weighted by where those words sit in the answer. They then test what increases that visibility.
What the study measured
The study compares nine ways of reworking a text, on a benchmark of ten thousand questions. Three methods come out on top: citing your sources, adding quotations from credible sources, and replacing a general statement with figures. They increase visibility by 30 to 40% on the authors’ main measure. They repeated the test on Perplexity, a live engine, and measured visibility gains there of up to 37%.
Keyword stuffing, inherited from traditional SEO, brings no gain. The authors place it among the ineffective methods.
One result concerns lower-ranked sites. In the experiment, the site ranked fifth on Google gains 115% in visibility when it cites its sources. With the same method, the site ranked first loses 30% on average.
The three winning methods are editorial work. They require knowing where a piece of information comes from, who established it and how it was measured. None of them calls for technical work on the site.
The sources change with the question
The first question on 14 September was about a subject. The answer drew on pages that define that subject, ours among them. The second asked for a list of suppliers. The answer then drew on pages that draw up lists. We appeared in none of the rankings cited, and the answer did not name us. This reading covers one session, on one engine.
I had seen the same mechanism in July 2026, during an audit for a banking company. We put fourteen client questions to four engines. Eleven of those questions did not contain the brand name. Of the forty-four answers to those eleven questions, three pointed to its website. The rest drew on comparison sites and brokerage sites.
GEO therefore covers two kinds of source. Your pages count for questions about your subject. Rankings, directories and the press count for the questions where your client is choosing a supplier.
What makes an organisation quotable
Sources, quotations and figures
These three methods are the main result of the study by Aggarwal and his co-authors. State where every important claim comes from: the author, the date, the measurement. Replace “many clients” with the number, and “according to a study” with the name of the study.
An accurate description of the organisation
I then asked Perplexity why WeAreTheWords was missing from its list. Perplexity answered that the agency had been founded in Belgium. Yet we also have a company in France. The explanation an engine gives for its own answer does not prove what caused the omission. It does show the description the engine holds of us. So check what the engines say about your business, your locations and your history. Then correct your description on your own site and in your directory entries.
A presence in other people’s sources
For a question about choice, the engine cites rankings, directories and the press. In the banking audit, the sources cited belonged to brokers, comparison sites, financial media and a public service website. List the sources cited in your sector. Check that your organisation appears in them and that its description is accurate. Start with your directory entries: you can edit those yourself.
GEO adds to SEO
GEO does not replace SEO. Generative engines cite pages published online, and those pages have to be found first. The criteria that build a page’s standing with Google therefore still matter.
What changes is the unit of measurement. SEO is measured in positions and clicks. GEO is measured in citations inside answers.
Measuring your presence in the answers
An engine’s answer varies from one day to the next, and from one user to another. The authors of the study generate five answers per question to smooth out those differences. A single reading therefore gives no more than an order of magnitude. To obtain a measurement, put the same questions to several engines, at regular intervals. At each reading, record whether the brand appears, how it is cited and whether what is said about it is accurate.
In our Elite engagement, which covers editorial governance, we repeat this measurement every quarter.
Where to start
- Write down ten questions a client asks before contacting you. Sort them into two groups: questions about your subject, and questions where the client is choosing a supplier.
- For the questions about your subject, check that a page on your site answers them. It should define the term in its opening lines and cite its sources.
- For the questions about choice, put them to ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini. Note the sources cited, then check that your organisation appears in them.
Sacem worked on its institutional voice and on its visibility in the engines: see the case study. To take stock of your own situation, contact us.
Frequently asked questions
What does GEO mean in marketing?
GEO stands for Generative Engine Optimization. The term covers the work that makes content quotable by generative engines such as ChatGPT, Perplexity or Gemini. It comes from a study by Pranjal Aggarwal and his co-authors, presented at the KDD conference in 2024.
Does GEO replace SEO?
No. Generative engines cite pages published online. SEO remains the condition for those pages to be found. GEO adds another requirement: that they are taken up and cited in the answer.
Which methods make a page more visible in an AI’s answers?
The founding GEO study identifies three: citing your sources, adding quotations from credible sources, and giving figures. They increase visibility by 30 to 40%. Keyword stuffing brings no gain at all.
Source: Pranjal Aggarwal, Vishvak Murahari, Tanmay Rajpurohit, Ashwin Kalyan, Karthik Narasimhan and Ameet Deshpande (2024), “GEO: Generative Engine Optimization”, KDD 2024, arXiv:2311.09735.