AI Discoverability
How to Get Cited by ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity
Your next customer asks an AI assistant before they ask Google. Generative engine optimization is how you become the answer it gives. Here is the practical playbook.
Generative engine optimization (GEO) is the practice of getting your business cited as a source when people ask AI assistants for recommendations. It works by making your content easy for AI crawlers to read, factually clear, well-structured, and corroborated by mentions elsewhere on the web. GEO is to AI assistants what SEO was to Google, and it compounds the same way: every citation makes the next one more likely.
- What it optimizes for
- ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, AI Overviews
- Core levers
- Crawlability, structure, clarity, citations
- Closest cousin
- Technical SEO + PR
- Payoff
- Compounding visibility
A growing share of buyers now open ChatGPT, Claude or Perplexity before they open Google. They ask a question in plain English ("who's the best agency for X in Brighton?") and act on the handful of names the assistant returns. If your business is not in that answer, you are invisible to that buyer, no matter how well you rank on Google. Closing that gap is what GEO does.
How AI assistants actually pick sources
AI assistants do not rank ten blue links. They synthesise an answer and cite a few sources they consider trustworthy and relevant. Three things drive whether you are one of them:
- Can the AI read you? Many AI crawlers (GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot) do not run JavaScript. If your content only appears after a script runs, they may see an empty page. Your content has to be in the raw HTML.
- Is your answer clear and self-contained? Assistants favour content that states a fact plainly and early, rather than burying it under preamble. A clear one-paragraph answer is more quotable than a meandering essay.
- Does the rest of the web agree? Assistants weigh corroboration. If your business is mentioned consistently across directories, reviews, press and your own structured data, you read as a real, trustworthy entity.
The GEO checklist
- Let the AI crawlers in: Explicitly allow GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot and Google-Extended in your robots.txt. Blocking them, often the default, guarantees you are never cited.
- Serve content in raw HTML: Prerender or server-render your pages so the body text exists before any JavaScript runs. A pure client-rendered site is largely invisible to non-JS AI crawlers. It is one more reason a custom build beats a website builder when discoverability matters.
- Add structured data: Mark up your organisation, services, articles and FAQs with schema.org JSON-LD. This tells the AI exactly what you are, what you offer and where you operate.
- Lead with the answer: Put a clear, factual summary at the top of each page, the way this article opens. Assistants lift quotable, self-contained statements.
- Build corroboration: Get mentioned consistently elsewhere: reviews, directories, partner sites, press. Keep your name, location and offering identical everywhere so you read as one coherent entity.
- Publish genuinely useful content: Answer the real questions your buyers ask. Pages that thoroughly answer a question are exactly what assistants reach for.
GEO vs SEO: same goal, different game
| Classic SEO | GEO | |
|---|---|---|
| Target | Google rankings | AI assistant citations |
| Output | A list of links | A synthesised answer |
| Wins on | Keywords + backlinks | Clarity + corroboration + structure |
| Crawler runs JS? | Mostly yes | Often no |
| Best content | Comprehensive page | Clear, quotable answer |
The two overlap heavily, which is good news: the technical foundation that helps you rank on Google (fast, crawlable, structured, well-written) is most of what helps you get cited by AI. You do not have to choose. You do have to do both deliberately, a split we unpack in SEO isn't dead, it split in two.
A local angle for London and Brighton
Try it now: open an AI assistant and ask for the best provider in your field in London or Brighton. Note who gets named. Those businesses are not necessarily the best, they are the most *legible* to AI: clear sites, consistent listings, structured data, genuine reviews. Local GEO is winnable precisely because so few competitors are doing it yet. The same early-mover advantage that early SEO offered is open right now.
How to measure GEO
- Ask the assistants directly. Run your key buyer questions through ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity monthly and track whether you appear.
- Watch referral traffic from chatgpt.com, perplexity.ai and similar in your analytics. It is small today and growing fast.
- Check your entity. Ask an assistant "what is [your business]?" and see if it describes you accurately. If not, your structured data and corroboration need work.
Want to be the answer AI gives?
We build AI discoverability into every site we make, and audit existing ones. Book a free intro call and we will check whether ChatGPT and Perplexity can see you today.
Book a free intro callFrequently asked questions
What is generative engine optimization (GEO)?
GEO is the practice of optimizing your content so AI assistants like ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews cite your business when answering relevant questions. It focuses on crawlability, clear self-contained answers, structured data and corroboration across the web.
How is GEO different from SEO?
SEO aims to rank your page in a list of links on Google. GEO aims to get your business named inside an AI assistant's synthesised answer. They share a technical foundation (fast, crawlable, structured, well-written content), but GEO leans more on clarity and corroboration, and it matters that many AI crawlers do not run JavaScript.
Why is my business not showing up in ChatGPT answers?
The most common reasons are that AI crawlers are blocked in your robots.txt, your content only renders via JavaScript so non-JS crawlers see an empty page, you lack structured data, or your business is not corroborated consistently across the web. Fixing those is the core of a GEO project.
Can a small local business win at GEO?
Yes, and local is one of the most winnable areas right now because so few competitors optimize for it. Clear listings, consistent business details, structured data, real reviews and a crawlable site can get a London or Brighton business cited ahead of larger rivals who have ignored AI discoverability.
About the author
Mat Mora, MSc · Founder & AI Specialist, Mismi
Mat Mora is an AI specialist and the founder of Mismi, where he designs and ships custom AI solutions for businesses, from internal assistants to bespoke, AI-powered websites. He holds an MSc from the University of Sussex and AI credentials including Anthropic's AI Fluency Framework & Foundations, DeepLearning.AI and OpenAI prompt engineering. He builds and ships production AI products, including the Diving Standard app, and works with companies across London, Brighton and the UK.