---
title: "GEO: generative engine optimization"
description: "Generative engine optimization from ShoutRank for ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, and Copilot. Kept separate from Google AI Overviews."
canonical: https://shoutrank.com/geo
markdown: https://shoutrank.com/geo.md
---

# GEO: generative engine optimization

Generative engine optimization from ShoutRank for ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, and Copilot. Kept separate from Google AI Overviews.
GEO is the work of being cited inside generative chat products. It does not include the Google AI Overview.

ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, and Copilot answer in a thread. They sometimes show a source. The reasons they pick a page are related to search, and they are not the same decision Google makes when it builds an overview above the blue links.

ShoutRank keeps those logs apart. If the brief is the overview, that is [AIO](https://shoutrank.com/aio). If the brief is a consultant who sits with the team on chat products, that seat is the [GEO consultant](https://shoutrank.com/geo-consultant) page. This page is the service.

ShoutRank does not guarantee a ranking or a citation.

## The problem

### The brand is described differently in each product.

One chat calls you a tool. Another calls you an agency. A third names a competitor that published a clearer definition.

### Sources are visible and still wrong.

Perplexity shows a link. The linked page is a roundup that mentions you once, in a list, without the limit of the offer.

### Teams paste the Google overview into the chat report.

The overview moved. The chat reply did not. The blended chart says the program worked.

## How ShoutRank approaches it

We pick the chat products your buyers actually open and write prompts in their words. Each product gets its own column: named, linked, or missing. The Google overview is not a column on this sheet.

Fixes are on your pages and on the third-party pages a chat product already trusts. That second part is [citation building](https://shoutrank.com/ai-citation-building), scoped to sources that show up in these products.

## What the work includes

### Product list

Which chat products are in the program, and which are out, written down.

### Prompt set

Category questions, comparison questions, and the “what is” question a new buyer asks.

### Source notes

The URLs each product cited, including the ones that are not yours.

### Page edits

Openings and definitions rewritten so a chat reply can lift them without adding a feature you do not have.

## Process

### Discovery

Confirm which chat products the sales team already hears about from buyers.

### Audit

Ask the prompt set once in each product and save the reply and the sources.

### Strategy

Decide whether the gap is your page, a third-party explanation, or both.

### Implementation

Edit the pages you control. Pitch the sources you do not, only where the editor would run the correction.

### Monitoring

Re-ask on a fixed cadence. Do not add the Google overview to this log.

### Optimization

Drop prompts that no buyer asks, and add the comparison the last sales call mentioned.

### Reporting

A per-product table: named, linked, missing, and the URL that was cited instead.

## Why ShoutRank

### GEO is not a synonym for every AI surface

Using one word for chat and for the Google overview makes the report useless. We refuse that.

### Sources are part of the read

A flattering sentence with no source is noted. It is not counted as a citation.

### Tied to a page you can change

The recommendation names the URL. Advice that does not land on a document is not a deliverable.

## How success is measured

Named, linked, or missing, per chat product, on the same prompts.

Which third-party URL was cited when you were not.

Whether a rewritten definition shows up in a later reply, or the old wording does.

A named client result is published when that client clears the figure. Until then the report is the measurement.

## Questions

### Does GEO include Google AI Overviews?

No. Overviews are AIO. GEO is ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot, and any other generative chat product named in the brief. An agent that browses and acts is the AI agents page, not this one.

### Is this the same as the GEO consultant page?

The consultant page is the seat: a person beside your team. This page is the service: prompts, sources, and the pages that should be cited.

### Can you force a model to cite us?

No. We can make the page easier to lift and earn mentions on sources the product already uses. We cannot place you in the reply.

## Related

- [GEO consultant](https://shoutrank.com/geo-consultant): The person, when the team needs a seat more than a document.
- [ChatGPT SEO](https://shoutrank.com/chatgpt-seo): One product, in more detail.
- [AIO](https://shoutrank.com/aio): The Google overview, on its own page.