A curated list of resources for optimizing content visibility in AI-powered search engines (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, Claude, etc.)
Also known as: AI Search Optimization (AISO), Answer Engine Optimization (AEO), Large Language Model Optimization (LLMO), Generative AI Optimization, AI SEO, LLM SEO
- Guides & Tutorials
- Case Studies
- Tools & Software
- Research & Papers
- Technical Documentation
- Agentic Commerce & Shopping
- Monitoring & Analytics
- Newsletters & Blogs
- Videos & Podcasts
- Communities & Forums
- Conferences & Events
- Industry Analysis
- Related Resources
- Contribute
- What is GEO? - Search Engine Land primer.
- GEO vs SEO Differences - Key distinctions.
- Beginner's Guide to GEO - Step-by-step introduction.
- Google's Official AI Search Guidance - Official guidance from Google Search Central on optimizing for AI experiences.
- Google AI Overviews Ultimate Guide - Comprehensive strategies for AI Overview optimization.
- How ChatGPT Search Works - Technical breakdown of ChatGPT's search functionality and ranking factors.
- SearchGPT Optimization Guide - Complete optimization strategies for OpenAI's search features.
- Perplexity Ranking Factors Deep Dive - Detailed analysis of Perplexity's 3-layer reranking system.
- 59+ Perplexity Ranking Patterns - Browser-level code analysis revealing specific ranking factors.
- AI Optimization Technical Guide - Comprehensive technical overview of content optimization for AI systems.
- How Vercel Adapts SEO for LLMs - Real-world implementation case study from a major platform.
- AI Search Optimization: llms.txt Best Practices - Technical implementation guide for llms.txt protocol.
- Integrate GEO with SEO - Strategies for unified traditional and AI search optimization.
- 10-Step Guide to GEO - Systematic approach to implementing GEO.
- LLMO: 10 Ways to Work Your Brand Into AI Answers - Practical tactics for improving AI citations.
- 2,300% AI Traffic Growth - Manufacturing - E-E-A-T optimization case.
- 200% Monthly Growth - Auto Parts - Schema + llms.txt implementation.
- Influencing ChatGPT Results - Real-time optimization.
- 115% Visibility - Geneva Worldwide - AI Overviews domination.
- 7× Growth - Ramp Fintech - 3.2% to 22.2% visibility.
- How to Appear in Generative AI Searches - Exposure Ninja presentation.
Purpose-built platforms for AI search optimization, monitoring, and brand visibility:
- AthenaHQ - Y Combinator-backed. Founded by ex-Google Search and DeepMind leaders. Unified GEO scoring. Claims 70+ customers with 10× AI traffic increases.
- Bluefish AI - $5M funded. Specializes in brand safety and source attribution. "Source graph" showing how Wikipedia, forums, PDFs influence outputs. AI ad campaigns.
- GeckoCheck - Platform that helps merchants and brands optimize visibility, dominate AIsearch results, and deliver answers to billions of daily shoppers.
- GenRank - Timeline visualization and competitor benchmarking for AI visibility trends.
- Geoptie - Helps you optimize your content for AI search engines and track your performance across multiple platforms.
- Goodie - Leading AI-native GEO platform founded by experts from major tech companies. Comprehensive suite of GEO optimization and monitoring tools.
- GEOmetrics - Hallucination detection and fixing for improved AI citation accuracy.
- Otterly.AI - Focused on link citation analysis for Google AI Overview and Perplexity. Timeline tracking and competitive benchmarking.
- Peasy - Specialized crawl audits and technical analysis for AI search engine visibility.
- Peec.ai - AI search visibility platform with competitive analysis and optimization recommendations.
- Profound - Enterprise benchmark platform. $35M Series B (Sequoia Capital). Tracks ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini. Share of voice, sentiment analysis, prompt-level rankings.
- Rankscale - AI-first SEO platform with GEO capabilities for enterprise brands.
- Rankshift - Position tracking and visibility monitoring for AI-powered search platforms.
- Scrunch - Agent Experience Platform (AXP) for making websites legible to AI engines. Monitoring and active optimization.
- ZipTie - Brand visibility monitoring across generative AI platforms with detailed breakdowns.
- Knowatoa - AI search analytics platform tracking brand mentions across ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity.
- Daydream - AI visibility optimization platform with focus on content discoverability.
Major SEO platforms that have added AI search optimization capabilities:
- Ahrefs Brand Radar - Launched March 2025. Tracks visibility in ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot. 100M+ prompt database from real search data. Included with subscriptions ($129-$999/month).
- ChatGPT Rank Tracker - Dedicated SearchGPT/ChatGPT Search visibility tracking.
- Create & Grow AI Overview Tracker - Focused on Google AI Overviews mention tracking.
- HubSpot AI Search Grader - Free AI Search Grader tool. LLM-referred visitor segmentation. Acquired XFunnel (Jan 2025) for AI search simulations and transparency.
- SEMrush - AI Visibility Toolkit ($99/month per domain). Position Tracking for AI Overviews. Enterprise AIO for brand mentions, sentiment, prompt rankings across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude. 100M+ prompt database.
- Writesonic - Multi-platform tracking with content creation integration for ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini.
- AI Product Bench - Benchmark for AI product visibility.
- Apify Generator - Scraping-based generator.
- llmstxtgenerator.org - Web-based generator.
- WordLift Generator - WordPress integration.
- GEO: Generative Engine Optimization - Princeton/Georgia Tech/Allen Institute study showing 40% visibility improvements. Introduces 9 core optimization tactics including cite sources, statistics, and quotations strategies that showed measurable results..
- GEO on ACM Digital Library - Peer-reviewed publication with full methodology. Provides testing framework for measuring GEO success across different content domains and query types..
- Inside AI Search Ranking Factors - Pallas Advisory's reverse engineering of AI ranking (March 2025). Offers insights on how ChatGPT and Perplexity select and rank sources in their responses..
- AI Platform Citation Patterns - Analysis of how ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, and Perplexity cite sources differently. Wikipedia dominates ChatGPT at 47.9% of top citations; Reddit appears heavily in Gemini and Perplexity..
- Conductor 2026 AEO/GEO Benchmarks Report - Industry's first large-scale AEO/GEO analysis across 13,770 domains, 21.9M searches, and 17M AI responses. Key finding: ChatGPT drives 87.4% of AI referral traffic; AI referral conversions are 2× higher than traditional sources..
- State of AI Search Optimization 2026 - Kevin Indig's comprehensive analysis of LLM citation patterns and visibility factors. Reports 24% of ChatGPT responses generated without fetching online content; content under 3 months old is 3× more likely to be cited..
- ConflictBank: LLM Knowledge Conflicts - 7.4M claim-evidence pairs dataset. Explores when AI systems trust external content over conflicting information in their training data..
- ConflictingQA Dataset - How LLMs handle contradictory information. Findings suggest that LLMs favor source relevance over academic tone when selecting information..
- When Search Meets LLMs - Survey on Search4LLM & LLM4Search pipelines. Maps the technical architecture behind AI search, identifying potential optimization points..
- Dynamics of Adversarial Attacks on LLM-Based Search - Game-theoretic model of attacks on LLM search engines. Analyzes the competitive dynamics between black-hat and white-hat GEO tactics..
- GASLITE: SEO Attacks on Dense Retrieval - 0.0001% corpus poisoning achieves top-10 hijacking. Identifies vulnerabilities in AI retrieval systems that practitioners should be aware of..
- Adversarial SEO for LLMs - Hidden text boosts mentions 2.5× in AI answers. Demonstrates manipulation techniques, highlighting the importance of legitimate optimization approaches..
- Ranking Manipulation for Conversational Search - Prompt injection for ranking manipulation. Shows how on-page content can influence AI rankings through strategic text structures..
- Persistent Pre-Training Poisoning of LLMs - Long-term poisoning attack strategies. Suggests why maintaining fresh, authoritative content matters as AI systems update their training data..
- llms.txt Specification - Official standard by Jeremy Howard.
- What Is llms.txt? - Ahrefs implementation guide.
- LLMs.txt Technical Deep Dive - Protocol analysis.
- The Value of llms.txt: Hype or Real? - Critical analysis of adoption drivers and barriers.
- Google A2A Protocol - Google's Author-to-AI protocol includes llms.txt support.
- LLMS.txt Adoption Research Report 2025 - Updated monthly tracking showing 784+ websites implementing llms.txt/llms-full.txt (0.3% of top 1,000 websites as of June 2025).
- Google Adds llms.txt to Search Central Docs - On December 3, 2025, Google quietly added then removed llms.txt from Search Central documentation the same day, despite previously dismissing the standard.
- Companies Using llms.txt - Implementations by Zapier, Stripe, Cloudflare, Anthropic, Vercel, Supabase, ElevenLabs.
- Who is Using llms.txt? - Examples and adoption patterns across AI/ML, Developer Tools, and SaaS sectors.
- llms.txt Directory - Community-driven directory of implementations.
- LLMSDB - Directory of llms.txt files.
- AI Crawler User Agents List - Comprehensive list updated monthly.
- The Rise of AI Crawlers - Analysis of 1.3B crawler requests.
- How OpenAI Crawls Websites - Technical breakdown.
- AI Crawlers Can't Execute JavaScript - Critical limitation analysis.
- AI Search & Structured Data - Implementation guide.
- JSON-LD vs Microdata Performance - A/B test results.
- Schema for AI Visibility - Best practices.
Open protocols and platforms enabling AI agents to facilitate discovery, purchasing, and checkout on behalf of users.
- UCP Developer Guide - Official documentation for implementing Universal Commerce Protocol.
- Under the Hood: Universal Commerce Protocol - Technical deep dive from Google Developers Blog.
- New Tech and Tools for Retailers in the Agentic Era - Google's announcement of agentic commerce tools and UCP.
- Sundar Pichai's NRF 2026 Remarks - CEO keynote announcing UCP at National Retail Federation.
- Google Announces Universal Commerce Protocol - TechCrunch coverage of UCP launch.
- Google Launches UCP for Agent-Led Shopping - Search Engine Land analysis.
- Google Bolsters AI Commerce with UCP - CNBC coverage of the retail implications.
UCP is an open-source protocol co-developed with Shopify, and endorsed by 20+ partners including PayPal, Stripe, Visa, Mastercard, Walmart, Target, Etsy, and Wayfair. It enables AI agents to handle product discovery, browsing, and checkout across merchants. Compatible with A2A (Agent2Agent), AP2 (Agent Payments Protocol), and MCP (Model Context Protocol).
- Buy It in ChatGPT: Instant Checkout - OpenAI's announcement of Instant Checkout and the Agentic Commerce Protocol.
- Introducing Shopping Research in ChatGPT - ChatGPT's shopping research feature powered by GPT-5 mini.
- Instant Checkout for Merchants - Merchant integration guide for ChatGPT commerce.
- ChatGPT Shopping Research Feature - Retail Dive coverage.
- OpenAI Shopping Tool Announcement - CNBC analysis.
OpenAI's Agentic Commerce Protocol, built in partnership with Stripe, powers Instant Checkout in ChatGPT. Launched September 2025 for Plus, Pro, and free users in the US. Partners include Etsy, Shopify, Walmart, and Target. Product results are organic and unsponsored. Merchants pay a small fee on completed purchases.
- The Protocol Behind Shopify and Google's AI Shopping Vision - Deep analysis of UCP architecture and implications.
- Why AI Shopping Agent Wars Will Heat Up in 2026 - Modern Retail competitive landscape analysis.
- PayPal Supports Trusted AI Checkout with Google - PayPal's UCP integration announcement.
- Google's New Tech Lets AI Agents Handle Checkout - Skift travel/commerce perspective.
McKinsey projects agentic commerce will reach $3-5 trillion by 2030. Major players: Google (UCP), OpenAI (Agentic Commerce Protocol), Microsoft (Copilot Checkout). 2026 is the pivotal year for consumer adoption of AI shopping agents.
- Track AI Visibility Across Platforms - Cross-platform tracking methodologies and frameworks.
- LLM Optimization Tracking - Emerging approaches for AI discovery measurement.
- AI Search Traffic in GA4 - Setup guide for tracking AI-referred traffic in Google Analytics.
- Measuring GEO Success - KPI framework for generative engine optimization.
- AI Brand Footprint Measurement - Approaches to measuring brand visibility in AI responses.
- Guide to LLM Tracking Tools - Comprehensive platform comparison and evaluation criteria.
- LLM Tracking Tools Overview - Feature comparison across major tracking platforms.
- AI Search Visibility Tools Directory - Comprehensive directory of tracking tools.
- GEO Weekly - Weekly newsletter covering GEO trends, tools, and strategies.
- SEO for AI Newsletter - Focused coverage of AI search optimization developments.
- The AI SEO Brief - Curated AI SEO news and insights delivered weekly.
- Search Engine Land AI Coverage - Authoritative coverage of AI search developments.
- Ahrefs Blog - Regular GEO research studies and data analysis.
- SEMrush Blog - AI Overviews studies and platform updates.
- Profound Blog - Enterprise GEO insights and research.
- Otterly AI Blog - AI citation analysis and platform comparisons.
- Rankability Blog - llms.txt adoption tracking and GEO research.
- How to Rank in ChatGPT and AI Search - Matt Diggity comprehensive GEO guide.
- AI Overviews SEO Strategy - Ahrefs breakdown of AI Overview optimization.
- GEO Explained in 10 Minutes - Quick introduction to Generative Engine Optimization concepts.
- Search Off the Record - Google's official podcast covering search including AI developments.
- Niche Pursuits Podcast - Covers AI SEO and content optimization strategies.
- Authority Hacker Podcast - Regular episodes on AI search impact and optimization.
- r/GEO_ai - Subreddit dedicated to Generative Engine Optimization discussions.
- GEO LinkedIn Groups - Search for "Generative Engine Optimization" or "AI SEO" groups for professional discussions.
- GEO Conference Community - Community around the dedicated GEO conference.
These platforms are frequently cited by AI engines - building presence here improves GEO:
- Reddit - Critical for Perplexity optimization (46.7% of citations). Focus on relevant subreddits in your industry.
- Hacker News - Highly authoritative for tech and startup content. Frequently cited by AI engines.
- Stack Overflow - Developer-focused. Essential for technical product visibility.
- Quora - Question-answer format aligns well with AI search patterns.
- Product Hunt - Product launches and discussions cited for product recommendations.
- Wikipedia - Dominates ChatGPT citations at 47.9% of top citations. Creating/maintaining accurate Wikipedia presence is critical for GEO.
- GEO Conference - The first dedicated Generative Engine Optimization conference. Held in Austin (July 2025) and San Francisco. Focuses exclusively on AI search optimization strategies.
- MozCon - Major SEO conference with increasing AI search focus. Covers ranking strategies, SERP insights, and AI-driven search innovations.
- BrightonSEO - September 23-24, 2025 (San Diego) and October 23-24, 2025 (Brighton, UK). Features AI for SEO, content creation, and technical optimization tracks.
- Chiang Mai SEO Conference - Global gathering with deep dives into technical SEO, paid media, and AI-driven search.
- Search 'n Stuff Antalya - Global Digital Marketing Conference featuring 45+ international speakers on SEO, analytics, and AI-driven marketing.
- How GEO Rewrites Search Rules - Andreessen Horowitz analysis.
- AI Search Engines Comparison - Platform differences.
- Top 4 AI Search Engines - Market overview.
- AI Overviews Reach 52% of Searches - February 2025 tracking data showing explosive growth.
- AI Overviews Have Doubled - 25M queries analyzed.
- SEMrush AI Overviews Study 2025 - 10M keyword analysis, 13.14% of queries triggered AI Overviews in March 2025 (up from 6.49% in January).
- 41M AI Search Results Analysis - Brighton SEO 2025 study across ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity, and Microsoft Copilot.
- AI Search Visibility Leaders by Industry - Sector breakdown.
- AI Citation Failure Study - 60% failure rate analysis.
- ChatGPT Search: 80M Clickstream Analysis - User behavior insights.
- 75K Brand Analysis: AI Overview Ranking Factors - Large-scale correlation study showing 95% of AI citation behavior unexplained by traditional traffic metrics.
- AI Overviews Reduce Clicks by 34.5% - CTR impact analysis.
- 63% of Websites Receive AI Traffic - 3,000 site study.
- AI Traffic Surges 527% in 2025 - Analysis from 400+ sites on citation patterns.
- 98+ GEO Statistics for 2025 - Comprehensive data compilation.
- AI Overviews Surged Then Pulled Back in 2025 - AI Overviews peaked at ~25% of queries in July 2025, fell back to <16% by November.
- Google December 2025 Core Update Analysis - 18-day rollout (Dec 11-29, 2025) with significant AI-driven content ranking shifts.
- How Google Search is Changing - January 2026 - Navigational AI Overviews grew from <1% to >10% in 2025; ads alongside AI Overviews rose from ~3% to ~40%.
- Our Approach to Advertising and Expanding Access - OpenAI's January 2026 announcement of advertising in ChatGPT. Ads are separate from answers, don't influence responses, and conversations remain private from advertisers.
Agencies offering dedicated generative engine optimization services:
- Avenue Z - Serves FinTech, B2B SaaS, HealthTech, DTC eCommerce.
- First Page Sage - Top-rated GEO agency serving Salesforce, Logitech. Specializes in B2B SaaS, medtech, manufacturing.
- Growth Plays - Data-driven GEO and content strategies.
- Ignite Visibility - Full-service digital marketing with GEO capabilities.
- iPullRank - Enterprise-focused. Semantic optimization, conversational search, scalable information architecture for LLM parsing.
- Obility - B2B marketing focus with GEO integration.
- Omniscient Digital - Helps websites become trusted sources cited by LLMs. Integrated SEO+GEO approach.
- RevenueZen - B2B GEO specialists for growth-stage companies.
- Siege Media - Content-focused GEO with comprehensive optimization strategies.
- Victorious - Award-winning for technical precision. Structured content, rich snippets, prompt-based optimizations.
- WebFX - Full-service with proprietary OmniSEO™ platform. Tracks client/competitor performance across AI-driven search.
- FirstPageSage Agency Guide - Comprehensive agency analysis.
- GEO Agencies on Clutch - Verified reviews and rankings.
- Omniscient Digital's Agency Review - Detailed agency comparisons.
- Awesome-GEO by DavidHuji - Research-focused GEO paper collection.
- Awesome SEO - Traditional SEO resources that complement GEO strategies.
Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is the practice of optimizing content to improve visibility and citations in AI-powered search engines. Unlike traditional SEO which focuses on ranking in search engine results pages (SERPs), GEO aims to have content referenced, cited, and recommended by Large Language Models (LLMs) when they generate responses.
AI search is growing exponentially - AI Overviews now appear for 52% of tracked searches (February 2025), up from 6.49% in January 2025. ChatGPT commands ~4.33% of search traffic, with 300% growth in unique domains receiving AI traffic in 2024. Market shift predictions indicate traditional search engine volume will drop 25% by 2026 and 50% by 2028, with LLM traffic predicted to overtake Google search by end of 2027.
New user behaviors show users write 23-word prompts to ChatGPT (vs 4.2 words in traditional search), seeking comprehensive answers rather than links. AI engines provide synthesized information directly, making citation inclusion critical for visibility. Beyond Google, users now search via ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, and other AI assistants.
Citations and Attribution - Getting brands and content cited as sources in AI-generated responses.
Entity Optimization - Strengthening brand presence as a recognized entity across the web.
E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) - Quality signals that influence AI recommendations. While E-E-A-T matters for traditional SEO, it's even more critical for GEO because LLMs prioritize citing authoritative sources to maintain accuracy. AI engines theoretically look for clear author credentials, publication dates, citations to primary sources, and corroboration across multiple trusted sites when selecting which content to reference in their responses.
Multimodal Optimization - Optimizing across text, images, videos, and audio using Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) and multimodal embeddings. Google Lens handles 20 billion visual searches monthly, making visual content optimization increasingly critical.
llms.txt - A proposed standard file (like robots.txt) for communicating with LLM crawlers. While not yet universally adopted, companies like Stripe, Zapier, and Cloudflare have implemented it. Note: As of 2025, no AI platform has officially committed to using llms.txt, but adoption is growing.
Multi-platform Optimization - Optimizing for different AI engines' unique algorithms and citation styles.
Hybrid SEO-GEO Strategy - Integrating traditional SEO with GEO techniques to maximize presence across both conventional search engines and AI-powered platforms.
While GEO shares foundations with SEO (quality content, technical optimization, authority building), it differs in key ways. The optimization target is LLM training data and retrieval systems vs. traditional search algorithms. Success metrics focus on citation frequency and brand mentions vs. rankings and clicks. Content strategy emphasizes comprehensive, authoritative information vs. keyword-targeted pages. Technical requirements include structured data for LLM comprehension vs. crawlability alone.
Contributions welcome! Read the contribution guidelines first.