What is GEO?

GEO is the work of getting a source retrieved, used, and cited by name inside an answer written by a model.

It's narrower than most of what gets sold under that label, and knowing the boundary is what keeps the work honest: there is no ranking position to fight over in a generative answer, only the presence or absence of your name in the text.

What changes compared to classic SEO is the order of the gates. Retrieval now comes before ranking, citation isn't proportional to usage, and the answer varies from one run to the next. What does not change is nearly everything else: the page still has to exist, load, be reachable, and say clearly what it's about.