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Google is still the main search engine people use, but they also turn to AI search engines to find answers. Google sees around 13.7 billion searches per day. ChatGPT, on the other hand, handles roughly 2.5 billion prompts daily, though only a fraction of those are search-style queries. Either way, AI search is now too big to ignore.

If you want your business to succeed online, understanding GEO vs SEO differences should be your focus. Why? The reason is that they both follow unique strategies.

We will explain to you how they are different, but also similar. Before that, check the comparison table below.

	SEO	GEO
But	Ranking higher on SERPs	Getting your brand cited and recommended by AI platforms
Query Output	A list of clickable links	Summarized answers extracted and generated from multiple sources
Query Format	Keywords (usually short-tail ones)	Long questions or prompts
Optimization	Targeting the right keywords, investing in services de création de liens, or guest posting, and optimizing your website’s technical aspects	Investing in brand mentions Getting included in listiclesStructuring content that is easily extracted by AI models
Metrics to Track	DR, Organic traffic, Backlinks, CTR	AI citations, AI mentions, AI referral traffic

What is SEO?

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of optimizing your website or content so that it ranks higher on search engines.

It is one of the traditional (and relatively older) digital marketing strategies for improving a website’s authority, driving traffic, and increasing conversions.

To learn more about SEO, check out this video on SEO and its types below:

What is GEO?

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) helps your content appear and be cited in responses generated by AI models. 

It is a relatively new strategy, now that AI search has become a thing.

In GEO, the way your content is written, structured, and the way your brand is promoted online matter more to AI.

SEO vs GEO vs AEO

People often confuse GEO meaning with AEO (Answer Engine Optimization), but these two carry different optimization purposes. 

AEO is about featuring your content as a direct response to the searched question in answer boxes like featured snippets. 

Try searching for a specific question on Google. You then see a highlighted direct answer in AI Overviews to your question. That’s how AEO works.

So, here’s a quick summary to help you with all the term confusion. 

• SEO: Increases a website’s visibility on search engine result pages and grows its organic traffic.
• GEO: Boosts a brand’s AI visibility (through AI mentions and AI citations) and positions it as an authoritative source.
• AEO: Optimizes content to show it as a direct answer to a specific question, mostly on extraits en vedette or other answer boxes.

Now, let’s go back to doing SEO vs GEO comparison.

GEO vs SEO: Key Differences

Here’s where GEO vs SEO mostly differ:

But 

In SEO, your goal is to rank higher on search engines like Google and appear in the top 10 results. Or if you are just starting, you at least focus on getting enough online visibility. So, your target platform is Google (or other traditional search engines).

In GEO, you optimize your website for AI search engines (like ChatGPT, Gemini or Claude). Here, your goal is to get cited and recommended in AI search engines as a source.

Query Format 

The questions people search for differ depending on the search engine, too. On Google, people mostly type short-tail keywords containing 3 or 4 words, as Google then lists sources that will contain those keywords.

When doing an AI search, people can ask longer questions, sentences, or insert longer prompts and get summarized conversational answers.

Query Output 

After people type their keywords, Google then lists the top results that match those keywords the most. This is a list of clickable blue hyperlinks, where users can click on them and get further information. And since your website can appear in this list too, it is a direct way to get organic traffic through those clicks.

On the other hand, AI engines provide a summarized text-based answer (usually also including relevant images or videos) generated from multiple web sources. And since people get answers to their questions in a summarized format, they usually end their search and don’t click on source links. This leads to a “zero-click” phenomenon, which significantly reduces traffic to a website. 

However, being recommended by AI increases brand awareness. After learning about your brand on AI, users can then continue with a branded search on Google, which can also add traffic to your website.

Quick expert data: Ahrefs has collected traffic data from 74,752 sites that joined its Web Analytics tool by June 2025. Then, they did an AI vs Search traffic analysis to track the overall traffic source changes.

Based on the analysis: 

• Traditional search drove 359.4M visits.
• AI assistants drove 5.0M visits.

The trend is what matters more than the raw gap. Google’s share of total traffic has slid from 35.1% in June 2025 to 26.8% in May 2026, dropping below 27% for the first time since tracking began. Meanwhile, AI-source traffic keeps climbing: in May 2026 alone, ChatGPT jumped +59.4% month-over-month, nearly doubling its traffic share, even as Gemini (−20.7%) and Perplexity (−18.0%) fell.

Le plat à emporter: AI traffic is still small in absolute terms, but it’s growing fast. Ahrefs’ own recommendation is to diversify traffic sources rather than depend on any single one.

Optimization and Success Metrics 

In SEO, you follow a set of on-page and off-page SEO tactics to appear on SERP top results, including:

• Optimizing your website or content by strategically placing ranking keywords in headings, titles, and meta tags. 
• Developing strong Liens internes so that search engines can easily find and index your pages. 
• Building backlinks from credible sources to improve your website authority and SERP positions.
• Creating a detailed schema markup to help search engines better understand your content or website structure.
• Making sure your website is up-to-date, the content (including articles, images, or videos) loads fast, and it is mobile-friendly.

And to check whether or not your SEO efforts are successful, you need to track key metrics, including:

• Your Domain Rating (DR)
• Trafic organique
• Mots-clés organiques
• Click-Through Rate (CTR)

In GEO, to win AI’s attention, key optimization strategies are:

• Increased multi-platform brand awareness 
• Fresh, helpful, and informative content
• Clear content structure with simple language for easy extraction
• Listicles (“best X”, “top X”), guides, comparisons (“vs”, “X alternatives”)
• An llms.txt file, some sites use to guide AI tools to their key content (adoption is still limited, so treat it as experimental).

And to track your AI visibility, check your Citations IA. Again, SEO tools can help. 

Astuce de pro : It is better if you track your citations across multiple AI platforms (like ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Claude), as different AI models have different logic behind picking and citing their sources.

GEO vs SEO: Key Similarities

There are also some important similarities you need to know.

• Brand Authority

Whether through improving website authority and SERP positions or getting lots of branded mentions online, your chances are higher of getting featured in both traditional and AI search engines. 

Here’s a simple test we did on both Google search and ChatGPT. We searched for “top 10 keyword research tools” and noticed that Reddit communities appear on both platforms as sources. 

Why? Because Reddit is already an authoritative platform where people can form communities to share their experiences or answer each other’s questions.

• Content Relevancy 

In SEO and GEO, your end goal is answering users’ questions. Whether your content is built around ranking keywords or the prompt typed in AI tools, it should match the intent, be relevant, and useful.

GEO vs SEO: Which One to Choose?

There is no direct answer as to which strategy is better in 2026: GEO or SEO. As both target different goals, it depends on your brand’s current needs.

But one thing is clear: you should start with SEO as a foundation to boost your brand’s credibility, and continue with GEO tactics to increase AI visibility potential as well. 

Besides their own training data, AI models can also use web pages that are already indexed by search engines to generate answers. In most cases, the sources cited by AI are also ranking well on Google.

This means that the higher your positions on Google, the more authoritative your content will seem to AI as a source. This will increase your chances of being cited by AI.

SayNine’s Approach

At SayNine, we prioritize both SEO and GEO strategies for us and our clients. Here is how:

• Notre services SEO complets help websites get better website performance, high visibility, and rankings.
• SayNine's SEO AI ensure our clients’ brands are added to already published blogs or are featured in the 1st spot of industry listicles. 
• As an example of mixing SEO and GEO strategies, we have directed our link building efforts to target our top-performing listicles more, so that there is a further increase in their AI visibility, too. 
• We also write blog articles that are both SERP and AI-friendly, meaning the content is informational, structured, and clear to extract from. This is especially helpful to win many AI citations.

See how AI Overview cited our article about best SEO audit services.

In our client’s example, a focused link building and listicle campaign drove a clear jump in AI visibility. GroWrk’s results show that in just one month, a strategic guest posting and listicle campaign helped to:

• Grow AI citations by 60% overall, with gains across every major platform
• Lift Domain Rating from 57 to 60 in November.
• Grow organic traffic from 5.6K to 7.2K (a 29% increase).

This is a clear example of SEO and GEO reinforcing each other: by getting GroWrk featured in industry listicles and building high-authority backlinks, we strengthened its presence in both Google and AI search at the same time.

As we see noticeable results for both our clients and SayNine, we recommend combining SEO and GEO strategies to also increase your website authority and AI visibility.

Voici un wrap

No matter the GEO vs SEO differences, both strategies work together. And so, for equal SERP and AI search success, it is recommended to invest in both strategies. 

Because if you focus only on SEO, you might miss out on AI visibility. Without strong SEO efforts, you have lower chances of winning AI’s attention.

And if you want to get the full advantage of both SEO and GEO strategies, SayNine can help you! Just nous contacter, and we will have it all done for you. 

FAQ about GEO vs SEO