| name | seo-geo |
| description | Optimize content for AI Overviews (formerly SGE), ChatGPT web search, Perplexity, and other AI-powered search experiences. Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) analysis including brand mention signals, AI crawler accessibility, llms.txt compliance, passage-level citability scoring, and platform-specific optimization. Use when user says "AI Overviews", "SGE", "GEO", "AI search", "LLM optimization", "Perplexity", "AI citations", "ChatGPT search", or "AI visibility".
|
| user-invocable | true |
| argument-hint | [url] |
| license | MIT |
| metadata | {"author":"AgriciDaniel","version":"2.2.5","category":"seo"} |
AI Search / GEO Optimization (May 2026)
Primary Source: Google's AI Optimization Guide
Google's official position, published under Search Central docs:
"Optimizing for generative AI search is still SEO from Google's
perspective. AEO and GEO are rebranded labels for the same work."
Read references/google-ai-optimization-guide.md for the full synthesis,
myth-busting list (llms.txt, chunking, AI-rephrasing, mention-farming,
all rejected by Google as ineffective), and the Who/How/Why test for
content quality.
Audits should frame GEO findings as SEO fundamentals applied to AI-search
surfaces, not as a separate optimization discipline. When community
recommendations contradict Google's primary source, defer to Google and note
the contradiction in the report.
Key Statistics
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|
| AI Overviews reach | 2.5 billion+ monthly active users, reported from Google I/O 2026 keynote coverage; not confirmed on a Google-owned source; 200+ countries | Third-party I/O reporting |
| AI Overviews query coverage | ~50% of queries (third-party measurement; varies by country) | Industry data |
| AI Mode monthly users | 1B+, reported from Google I/O 2026 keynote coverage; not confirmed on a Google-owned source | Third-party I/O reporting |
| AI Mode model | custom version of Gemini 2.5 | Google |
| AI-referred sessions growth | 527% (Jan-May 2025) | SparkToro |
| ChatGPT weekly active users | 900 million | OpenAI |
| Perplexity monthly queries | 500+ million | Perplexity |
Critical Insight: Brand Mentions > Backlinks
Brand mentions correlate 3x more strongly with AI visibility than backlinks.
(Ahrefs December 2025 study of 75,000 brands)
| Signal | Correlation with AI Citations |
|---|
| YouTube mentions | ~0.737 (strongest) |
| Reddit mentions | High |
| Wikipedia presence | High |
| LinkedIn presence | Moderate |
| Domain Rating (backlinks) | ~0.266 (weak) |
Only 11% of domains are cited by both ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews for the same query, so platform-specific optimization is essential.
GEO Analysis Criteria (Updated)
1. Citability Score (25%)
Optimal passage length: 134-167 words for AI citation. And ~44% of AI
citations come from the first 30% of a page (SE Ranking study), front-load
your most citable, self-contained answer rather than burying it below the fold.
Strong signals:
- Clear, quotable sentences with specific facts/statistics
- Self-contained answer blocks (can be extracted without context)
- Direct answer in first 40-60 words of section
- Claims attributed with specific sources
- Definitions following "X is..." or "X refers to..." patterns
- Unique data points not found elsewhere
Weak signals:
- Vague, general statements
- Opinion without evidence
- Buried conclusions
- No specific data points
2. Structural Readability (20%)
92% of AI Overview citations come from top-10 ranking pages, but 47% come from pages ranking below position 5, demonstrating different selection logic.
Strong signals:
- Clean H1->H2->H3 heading hierarchy
- Question-based headings (matches query patterns)
- Short paragraphs (2-4 sentences)
- Tables for comparative data
- Ordered/unordered lists for step-by-step or multi-item content
- FAQ sections with clear Q&A format
Weak signals:
- Wall of text with no structure
- Inconsistent heading hierarchy
- No lists or tables
- Information buried in paragraphs
3. Multi-Modal Content (15%)
Content with multi-modal elements sees 156% higher selection rates.
Check for:
- Text + relevant images
- Video content (embedded or linked)
- Infographics and charts
- Interactive elements (calculators, tools)
- Structured data supporting media
4. Authority & Brand Signals (20%)
Strong signals:
- Author byline with credentials
- Publication date and last-updated date
- Recency, content under 3 months old is ~3x more likely to be cited in AI answers; pages left stale 6+ months lose citation eligibility (SE Ranking, 1.3M-citation study). A scheduled refresh program is one of the highest-leverage GEO plays.
- Citations to primary sources (studies, official docs, data)
- Organization credentials and affiliations
- Expert quotes with attribution
- Entity presence in Wikipedia, Wikidata
- Mentions on Reddit, YouTube, LinkedIn
Weak signals:
- Anonymous authorship
- No dates
- No sources cited
- No brand presence across platforms
5. Technical Accessibility (20%)
AI crawlers do NOT execute JavaScript. Server-side rendering is critical.
Check for:
- Server-side rendering (SSR) vs client-only content
- AI crawler access in robots.txt
- llms.txt file presence and configuration
- RSL 1.0 licensing terms
AI Crawler Detection
Check robots.txt for these AI crawlers:
| Crawler | Owner | Purpose | Obeys robots.txt? |
|---|
| GPTBot | OpenAI | ChatGPT web search | yes |
| OAI-SearchBot | OpenAI | OpenAI search features | yes |
| ChatGPT-User | OpenAI | ChatGPT browsing (user-triggered) | no (user-triggered) |
| ClaudeBot | Anthropic | Claude web features | yes |
| PerplexityBot | Perplexity | Perplexity AI search | yes |
| CCBot | Common Crawl | Training data (often blocked) | yes |
| anthropic-ai | Anthropic | Claude training | yes |
| Bytespider | ByteDance | TikTok/Douyin AI | yes |
| cohere-ai | Cohere | Cohere models | yes |
| Google-Extended | Google | Gemini/Vertex training & grounding opt-out | yes |
| Google-CloudVertexBot | Google | Site-owner-requested Vertex AI Agent crawls | yes |
| Google-Agent | Google | Agentic browsing (Project Mariner), acts for a user | no (user-triggered) |
| Google-NotebookLM | Google | Fetches individual user-added source URLs | no (user-triggered) |
| Google Messages | Google | User-triggered fetch | no (user-triggered) |
Recommendation: Allow GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot for AI search visibility. Block CCBot and training crawlers if desired.
User-triggered fetchers ignore robots.txt by design (Google-Agent, Google-NotebookLM, Google Messages, ChatGPT-User). robots.txt cannot block them, use server-side access controls. Google's canonical crawling/robots reference moved to developers.google.com/crawling (migrated 2025-11-20); IP-range files now live at /crawling/ipranges/ and googlebot.json was renamed common-crawlers.json. Emerging: Web Bot Auth (RFC 9421) lets bots authenticate via a Signature-Agent header + key directory (used by Google-Agent); reverse-DNS verification remains the fallback.
llms.txt Standard
Read references/llmstxt-evidence.md for the primary-source evidence (Mueller, Illyes, SE Ranking 300k-domain study, OtterlyAI server-log audit) on why /llms.txt is not currently a citation lever for major AI search systems. claude-seo reports presence but assigns no citation-ranking weight.
Google now states this explicitly. Google's AI optimization guide, introduced
2026-05-15 and clarified 2026-06-15, says llms.txt and other AI-text files are
not needed for Google Search and do not help or hurt visibility or rankings.
They may still serve non-Google systems. Never recommend llms.txt as a Google
ranking or citation lever. Source:
developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/ai-optimization-guide
The emerging llms.txt standard provides AI crawlers with structured content guidance.
Location: /llms.txt (root of domain)
Format:
# Title of site
> Brief description
## Main sections
- [Page title](url): Description
- [Another page](url): Description
## Optional: Key facts
- Fact 1
- Fact 2
Check for:
- Presence of
/llms.txt
- Structured content guidance
- Key page highlights
- Contact/authority information
RSL 1.0 (Really Simple Licensing)
New standard (December 2025) for machine-readable AI licensing terms.
Backed by: Reddit, Yahoo, Medium, Quora, Cloudflare, Akamai, Creative Commons
Check for: RSL implementation and appropriate licensing terms.
Platform-Specific Optimization
| Platform | Key Citation Sources | Optimization Focus |
|---|
| Google AI Overviews | Strongly ranking-correlated, cites pages that already rank well | Traditional SEO + passage optimization |
| Google AI Mode (custom version of Gemini 2.5) | Weakly ranking-correlated; broader pool (~9 domains cited/query, Ahrefs) | Distinct surface: freshness, entity authority, citable passages beyond position 5 |
| ChatGPT | Wikipedia (47.9%), Reddit (11.3%) | Entity presence, authoritative sources |
| Perplexity | Reddit (46.7%), Wikipedia | Community validation, discussions |
| Bing Copilot | Bing index, authoritative sites | Bing SEO, IndexNow |
Two Google citation engines, not one. AI Mode and AI Overviews reach the
same conclusion ~86% of the time but cite the same URLs only 13.7% of the
time (Ahrefs study, 540K query pairs). Treat them as separate surfaces: ranking
well in classic Search feeds AI Overviews, but AI Mode draws from a broader pool
where freshness and entity authority outweigh raw position. Score both.
UX is now unified, surfaces still distinct. At Google I/O 2026 (2026-05-19)
Google merged AI Overviews and AI Mode into "one seamless AI Search experience"
(question → AI Overview → follow-up in AI Mode) with a new intelligent Search
box. The experience is one flow, but the two citation engines remain
technically distinct (different models/link sets), keep scoring both.
Citation surfaces & controls in AI Search (2026)
Google added many AI citation/source surfaces across AI Overviews and AI Mode (May 2026):
- Preferred Sources, an eligible domain or subdomain can be selected by a
user, making its content more likely to appear in that user's Top Stories and
eligible for a preferred badge in AI Mode or AI Overviews. This is a
per-user preference, not a documented general ranking signal. Publishers
may offer Google's interactive button or a deeplink, but should not promise a
site-wide ranking lift. Source:
developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/preferred-sources
- "Highly Cited" badges, earned via original primary reporting that other articles cite.
- Community Perspectives, elevates Reddit/forum/firsthand content.
- Inline links, desktop hover Link Previews, and prominent link carousels.
Controlling AI-feature appearance: there is no AI-specific opt-out file. Appearance in AI Overviews and AI Mode is governed by standard preview/index directives, nosnippet, data-nosnippet, max-snippet, noindex (distinct from the third-party AI-crawler robots controls above). Source: developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/ai-features
Search agents (live, not just WebMCP): Google's "Information Agents" run in the background to monitor topics, plus agentic booking/calling for select categories (rolling out to US users, summer 2026), so agent-friendly-page optimization (real interactive elements, accessibility tree, layout stability) now matters for actions, not only citations.
Output
Generate GEO-ANALYSIS.md with:
- GEO Readiness Score: XX/100
- Platform breakdown (Google AIO, ChatGPT, Perplexity scores)
- AI Crawler Access Status (which crawlers allowed/blocked)
- llms.txt Status (present, missing, recommendations)
- Brand Mention Analysis (presence on Wikipedia, Reddit, YouTube, LinkedIn)
- Passage-Level Citability (optimal 134-167 word blocks identified)
- Server-Side Rendering Check (JavaScript dependency analysis)
- Top 5 Highest-Impact Changes
- Schema Recommendations (for AI discoverability)
- Content Reformatting Suggestions (specific passages to rewrite)
Quick Wins
- Add "What is [topic]?" definition in first 60 words
- Create 134-167 word self-contained answer blocks
- Add question-based H2/H3 headings
- Include specific statistics with sources
- Add publication/update dates
- Implement Person schema for authors
- Allow key AI crawlers in robots.txt
Medium Effort
- Create
/llms.txt file (optional: ignored by Google Search; may help other AI crawlers)
- Add author bio with credentials + Wikipedia/LinkedIn links
- Ensure server-side rendering for key content
- Build entity presence on Reddit, YouTube
- Add comparison tables with data
- Implement FAQ sections (structured, not schema for commercial sites)
High Impact
- Create original research/surveys (unique citability)
- Build Wikipedia presence for brand/key people
- Establish YouTube channel with content mentions
- Implement comprehensive entity linking (sameAs across platforms)
- Develop unique tools or calculators
DataForSEO Integration (Optional)
If DataForSEO MCP tools are available, use ai_optimization_chat_gpt_scraper to check what ChatGPT web search returns for target queries (real GEO visibility check) and ai_opt_llm_ment_search with ai_opt_llm_ment_top_domains for LLM mention tracking across AI platforms.
Error Handling
| Scenario | Action |
|---|
| URL unreachable (DNS failure, connection refused) | Report the error clearly. Do not guess site content. Suggest the user verify the URL and try again. |
| AI crawlers blocked by robots.txt | Report exactly which crawlers are blocked and which are allowed. Provide specific robots.txt directives to add for enabling AI search visibility. |
| No llms.txt found | Note the absence (optional file; Google Search ignores it) and provide a ready-to-use llms.txt template for non-Google AI crawlers. |
| No structured data detected | Report the gap and provide specific schema recommendations (Article, Organization, Person) for improving AI discoverability. |
FLOW Framework Integration
For prompt-guided AI content optimization, use /seo flow optimize <url>, FLOW's 21 optimize-stage prompts complement GEO's citability and structure analysis with evidence-led AI prompts.
