What is GEO? How it differs from SEO for online stores

Shoppers now type “where can I buy a light camping stove?” into ChatGPT as well as Google. The answer lists a few stores, short reasons and links to sources. Is your store in that answer, or is a rival recommended instead? That question is what GEO is about.

This guide covers what GEO is, how assistants build a shopping answer, how it differs from SEO and what a store can do today.

What is GEO?

GEO stands for generative engine optimization, also called AI visibility. Its goal is for a site to show up in AI assistants' answers in two ways:

• Being mentioned (recommended): the answer names your store or its domain; you're on the “stores worth a look” list.
• Being cited: one of your pages is linked in or under the answer, and the shopper is one click away from it.

The two are counted separately: you can be named without your site being cited, or the other way round.

GEO isn't a new technical trick. When assistants search the web, they build the answer from the pages they find, so most of the work is familiar: findable, trustworthy pages that answer the question.

How AI assistants build a shopping answer

Each assistant has its own method, but what they describe in their documentation follows a common pattern:

1. The question becomes searches. ChatGPT can search the web on its own when a question needs current information, and it rewrites the question into one or more targeted searches (OpenAI). Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode can also split a question into subtopics and run several related searches, which Google calls “query fan-out” (Google).
2. The answer is written from the pages found. The answer draws on the pages those searches turn up, and answers that use search can show their sources as links.
3. Sources are chosen. To be a supporting link in Google's AI Overviews, a page must be indexed and eligible to show in Search with a snippet, and even that doesn't guarantee it will be shown. OpenAI likewise says ChatGPT ranks results on several factors meant to surface relevant, reliable information, and that placement isn't guaranteed.

In practice, when a sub-question is “how do I choose a one-person tent?”, the store whose page clearly answers it is a candidate source. A category page that shows only a product grid offers no sentence for the answer, even if search finds it.

Not every answer is written with a search. In our study, ChatGPT ran a web search in 74 of its 180 answers and answered the rest without one. That's why, when you measure, it also matters whether the answer cites any sources.

SEO vs GEO: what stays the same, what changes

Google is clear on this: appearing in its AI features needs no extra requirements or special optimizations, only the SEO basics it already recommends for Search (Google). What changes is less the work itself than the shape of the result and how you measure it:

The last row matters most: good SEO work pays off for GEO too. Being indexed is already the first condition for being a source in Google's AI Overviews, and to appear in ChatGPT search your site has to be open to OpenAI's search bot, OAI-SearchBot (OpenAI).

The measurement gap is easy to miss. Google counts visits from its AI features inside your overall search traffic in Search Console, under the “Web” search type of the Performance report (Google), and your visibility in ChatGPT isn't in Search Console at all. Your usual tools don't answer “am I in AI answers?”.

What a store can do for GEO

Each item below is either one of the basics Google recommends for its AI features or a requirement OpenAI sets for ChatGPT search. The order matters: first be findable, then have something worth saying.

• Let the search bots in. Google recommends making sure robots.txt, and any CDN or hosting in front of your site, allow crawling (Google). To appear in ChatGPT search, your site has to be open to OAI-SearchBot, and your CDN to OpenAI's search bot IP addresses. The step-by-step check is in Why doesn't ChatGPT recommend my store?.
• Give category pages copy that answers questions. A few paragraphs with short, clear answers to “how do I choose?”, “who is it for?” and “what should I look out for?” make a category page a candidate source for both “where to buy” and information questions.
• Write original product copy. The supplier's text is the same in dozens of stores, so an assistant has no reason to take it from your page in particular. What it is, who it's for and what sets it apart: the structure in the product description guide covers this in a few paragraphs.
• Put important information in text. Google recommends having important content available as text, with images and video supporting it (Google). If shipping times, return terms, size charts or warranty details only appear inside an image or only in the cart, a system reading your page's text may not find them.
• Keep business details current and consistent. Google puts up-to-date Merchant Center and Business Profile information on the same list. Write your store's name, address and contact details the same way everywhere.
• Keep structured data in line with the visible text. Structured data describes a page's content in a standard format; Google uses it to understand the page and recommends the JSON-LD format (Google). AI features need no special markup; what Google asks is that the markup says the same thing as the text on the page. A page with one price on the product card and another in the markup breaks that rule.
• Link internally. Google recommends that content be easy to find through internal links: link your buying guide from the category page, and the category from the guide.

How to measure GEO

“I asked ChatGPT and we weren't there” isn't a measurement. Assistants' answers can change every time: in our study, when a question was asked again, only 19% of the sources ChatGPT showed came back every time; in Google's AI Overviews it was 55%. A single screenshot, good or bad, comes down to luck.

If you want to measure by hand, this method gives you a solid start:

1. Write about 10 questions your customers would ask, none with your store's name: “where can I buy hardware in Ankara?”, for example. What counts is the question from a shopper who doesn't know you yet.
2. Mix “where to buy” questions with information questions such as “how do I choose?”; different kinds of sites get cited for each.
3. Ask each question several times, signed out and from the same country, and note the date and which assistant you asked.
4. Count two things separately in each answer: is your name or domain there (a mention), and is your site linked as a source (a citation)?
5. Note who was recommended instead of you and which of their pages was cited: what does it have that yours doesn't?
6. After changing your pages, ask the same questions again the same way. Trust a change that holds over several checks, not a small difference in one round.

Measure with GEO Studio, fix with SEO Studio

Running this method by hand every week takes hours. Roigo's GEO Studio does the same job for your site:

1. You enter your site address; no store connection is needed. The check starts once you've confirmed your email address.
2. Topics to check are prepared: from the searches your site really gets if Search Console is connected, otherwise from your categories or the product types you sell. Each topic gets test questions without your store's name; you can edit them or add your own.
3. Each question is asked to ChatGPT more than once and to Gemini as well, from Turkey, in Turkish, as a signed-out user. Your store is recognised by your site's domain, so another business with the same name doesn't count.
4. The report shows your mention and citation rates separately for ChatGPT and Gemini, the stores recommended instead of you, results topic by topic and a priority task.
5. You prepare the copy for the priority task's page with Roigo AI in SEO Studio, and the text you approve goes to your store. Then you measure again with the same questions.

On the Free plan your site is checked with real questions once (per site and brand); the report shows the rates, the key finding, the answer to a sample question and the store recommended most instead of you. The full report and weekly tracking with the same questions come with paid plans.