What GEO is and how to appear in answers from Google, ChatGPT and other AI

Before, someone searched “automation agency in Bogotá”, saw ten blue links and chose. Today they type “which agency do you recommend to automate my WhatsApp with AI in Bogotá?” into ChatGPT or Google, and get a written answer with two or three names.

If your business is not among those two or three names, for that person you do not exist. GEO, or generative engine optimization, is the work of making AI systems find you, understand you and cite you.

What is GEO?

GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) is preparing your site and your digital presence so AI search engines, such as Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode or ChatGPT, can read your content, trust it and cite it in their answers. It does not replace SEO: it is built on top of it.

	Traditional SEO	GEO
Goal	Appear in the list of results	Appear inside the AI's answer
How people search	Short keywords	Complete, conversational questions
What gets rewarded	Relevance and authority	Clear, verifiable and citable answers
Technical foundation	Indexing and speed	The same, plus access for AI crawlers

What does Google say about appearing in AI Overviews and AI Mode?

That there are no tricks: good SEO is GEO. Google's official guide for site owners is clear:

• There are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, nor special optimizations.
• The page must be indexed and eligible to show snippets in Search.
• No special markup is needed, nor machine-readable files or AI-specific structured data.
• These features run several related searches at once, which allows them to show a wider set of links.
• Traffic coming from them appears in Search Console, under the “Web” search type.

To understand where Google Search is heading, read what changes with Google AI Mode.

How do I appear in ChatGPT's answers?

By letting its search crawler read your site. OpenAI uses different crawlers, and the one that matters for ChatGPT's search answers is OAI-SearchBot. According to OpenAI's crawler documentation:

• You must allow OAI-SearchBot in your robots.txt.
• Sites that block it are not shown in ChatGPT's search answers.
• Changes to robots.txt can take about 24 hours to apply.

Common mistake: believing your site is open to AI because you “never blocked anything”. Some hosting providers and CDNs block AI crawlers by default. If your robots.txt or your firewall blocks OAI-SearchBot, ChatGPT will not cite you even if your content is the best.

What do I do on my site to appear in AI answers?

1. Check indexing in Google Search Console: if your pages are not indexed, no Google AI will use them.
2. Allow the crawlers of AI search engines in robots.txt and in your firewall.
3. Sign up for Bing Webmaster Tools, which feeds several assistants.
4. Answer specific questions with clear paragraphs: the first sentence of each section should answer the question, like in this article.
5. Keep your data consistent: same name, phone and address on your website and your profiles.
6. Take care of the technical side: speed, an error-free site and structured data so search engines understand your business.

The technical side matters more than it seems. If your website is slow, read why your website speed affects your sales; and if you are thinking of switching platforms, how to migrate from WordPress to Cloudflare Pages without losing SEO.

How do I know if AI systems are already citing me?

Ask them. Ask ChatGPT and Google the questions your ideal customer would ask (“who implements Kommo in Bogotá?”, “which agency automates WhatsApp with AI?”) and note whether you appear, who appears instead of you and which pages they cite. Repeat every month: it is your GEO dashboard.

In short

For Google, GEO is doing good SEO: indexing, useful content and a healthy technical setup. For ChatGPT, also allowing OAI-SearchBot. The rest is being the clearest answer to what your customers ask, to be among those two or three names. We work on it in our SEO and GEO with AI service.