Answer Engine Optimization
The zero-click layer on search engines.
AI Visibility
Generative Engine Optimization
Buyers increasingly ask a model which vendor to use before they visit a single website. GEO is the work of being on the shortlist the model assembles.
At a glance
- Pillar
- AI Visibility
- Cycle time
- Weeks to quarters
- Prerequisite
- Resolvable entity
- Measured on
- Recommendation share
- Engines tracked
- 6, weekly
Generative engine optimisation is the practice of making a brand resolvable, quotable and corroborated so that generative models name it as an option when asked which vendor to use.
Generative Engine Optimization · definitionWhy the shortlist forms before you
Buyers ask a model which vendor to use before they visit a website, and the model answers with a shortlist assembled from sources you may have no presence in.
The click is no longer the entry point
If the shortlist is produced before anyone reaches a results page, ranking first on that page decides nothing.
Citation is not recommendation
Models will quote a source and then recommend a different vendor. Being quoted proves you are readable; being recommended requires corroboration you do not own.
The work compounds slowly
Entity corrections register in weeks. Source coverage moves over model refresh cycles. Starting late is expensive because the deficit is measured in publication timelines.
How it works
Baseline against a real prompt set
A fixed set of vendor-selection and informational prompts across six engines, mapped to buyer intent rather than keyword volume.
Resolve the entity
Schema, consistent descriptions, disambiguation and third-party records, so the model can name you with certainty before anything else is attempted.
Rewrite for extraction
Claims that stand alone as sentences, defined terms near the top, structured comparisons a retrieval pipeline can lift verbatim.
Earn corroboration
Independent coverage in the sources models retrieve, because your own site alone rarely moves a recommendation.
Measure and correct
Weekly scans of the prompt set, with drift attributed to a cause rather than noticed a quarter later.
What is included
01
Prompt-set baseline
Recommendation and citation share across six engines, per intent cluster.
02
Entity remediation
Schema, disambiguation and third-party record corrections.
03
Extractability rewrites
Priority pages restructured so claims can be lifted in isolation.
04
Corroboration programme
Editorial coverage in the sources models actually retrieve.
05
Weekly monitoring
Drift alerts with the prompt and the changed answer text.
06
Monthly executive review
What moved, what did not, and the diagnosis either way.
How it is measured
Recommendation share on vendor-selection prompts, citation share on informational prompts, and whether the description a model gives of you is factually correct.
- Recommendation share: how often you are named as an option, or the option, on direct “which should we use” prompts
- Citation share: how often you appear as an attributed source across a fixed prompt set
- Description accuracy: whether the model states your category, audience and offering correctly
- Attribution mix: which sources the model credits, and whether they are yours or third-party
- Competitive set: which brands appear beside you, and which displace you
Baseline figures · to supply per client
Where GEO sits against traditional SEO
| Dimension | Traditional SEO | RankingBite |
|---|---|---|
| Objective | Rank a page in a list | Be quoted inside an answer, and recommended by it |
| Unit of success | Position and click | Citation, attribution and recommendation share |
| Content shape | Comprehensive pages for dwell | Claim-first passages, liftable in isolation |
| Identity work | Rarely addressed | Prerequisite: the entity must resolve first |
| Authority signal | Links to your domain | Presence in retrieved and referenced sources |
| Failure mode | Ranking below competitors | Absent, described wrongly, or cited while a competitor is recommended |
Who this suits
A good fit when
- Buyers in your category research with AI assistants before shortlisting.
- You already rank reasonably well and still never appear in AI answers.
- You can support a multi-month programme rather than a one-off audit.
Not the right service when
- You have no site content worth extracting yet.
- Your entity is unresolvable and unfunded; start with entity work.
- You need leads this quarter: paid channels will be faster.
If a diagnostic shows the constraint is elsewhere, we will say so and point you at the service that actually fixes it, including one we do not sell.
Frequently asked questions
Can you guarantee we will be recommended by ChatGPT?
No, and no one credibly can. Model outputs are probabilistic and change with each release. What we can do is fix the conditions that make recommendation likely and measure the change against a fixed prompt set.
How often should recommendation share be measured?
Weekly for the prompt sets that matter commercially. Model behaviour shifts on days-to-weeks timescales, so a quarterly check discovers losses long after the cheapest window to correct them has closed.
Does GEO work for a brand nobody writes about?
It works more slowly. With no third-party coverage there is nothing to corroborate, so the early months go into earning the first independent sources.
Who does the work on your side?
One senior strategist owns the engagement end to end, supported by entity and content specialists. There is no handover to a junior delivery team after the sale.
Related services
Entity & Knowledge Graph
The prerequisite layer beneath GEO.
AI Brand Monitoring
Weekly measurement so gains hold.