Generative Engine Optimisation: Getting Cited by AI Search
Key takeaway
AI search assistants cite pages that answer a question directly, are easy to crawl and parse, and come from a source the wider web already treats as credible. There is no separate trick: clear answers, clean structure, open crawler access, and consistent facts about your business do most of the work.
A growing share of buyers now ask an AI assistant before they ever open a search results page. When that assistant recommends vendors or explains a topic, it cites a handful of sources — and being one of them is the new version of ranking on page one. Generative engine optimisation (GEO) is the practice of making your content the kind those systems choose to quote.
It is worth being honest up front: nobody outside the AI companies knows exactly how citations are selected, and the systems change often. What we do know is that most assistants retrieve pages from a search index or their own crawl, then pick passages that answer the question cleanly. That points to a set of practical habits rather than secret tactics.
Write answers that can be lifted
- Put a direct, one- or two-sentence answer near the top of the page, before the nuance.
- Use headings phrased the way people ask: "How much does X cost?", not "Pricing considerations".
- Include concrete figures, ranges, and named criteria — assistants prefer passages that commit to something.
- Keep each section self-contained, so a quoted paragraph still makes sense out of context.
Make the page easy to crawl and parse
Content rendered only by client-side JavaScript may never be seen by crawlers that don't execute it. Serve the main text in the initial HTML, keep pages fast, and use structured data (Organization, Article, FAQ, Product) so facts are machine-readable. A plain-text summary such as an llms.txt file is a cheap, low-risk addition, though adoption by AI providers is still uneven.
Decide what AI crawlers may do
Many sites block AI crawlers by accident through a blanket robots.txt rule or a CDN bot-protection setting. Check which user agents you allow, and separate the decision about training from the decision about search and retrieval — some providers use different crawlers for each. If you want to be cited, the retrieval crawlers need access.
Be consistent everywhere
Assistants cross-check. If your founding year, service list, or location differ between your website, your directory listings, and your profiles elsewhere, you look less certain to a system that weighs agreement between sources. Keep one canonical set of facts and update every listing when it changes. Independent mentions — reviews, industry directories, press — still matter, because they are how any system decides a source is credible.
Measure it the simple way: keep a list of the questions your buyers ask, run them through the main assistants each month, and record whether you are cited and what they say about you.