The Truth About GEO: Beyond SEO, AIO, and LLM Visibility

Trevor Stolber
Dec 22, 2025
6 min read

Do you want to rank at the top of the LLMs and AIOs?

We uncover the hidden factors that most are missing.

There is a feverish debate in SEO and the wider marketing community regarding Generative Engine Optimization (GEO). Even so much as to consider whether the terms GEO or AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) are applicable. Or are these just rebrandings of SEO?

I would argue that people are largely missing the point.

In case you’re just joining this conversation: GEO is the practice of making a site visible in LLMs like Chat GPT and Perplexity, and in AIOs (AI Overviews in Google), whereas SEO is the practice of making a site visible in a search engine like Google or Bing.

A search bar with the words "the truth about GEO: Beyond SEO, AIO, and LLM Visibility denoting the start of the article

The SEO = GEO Debate
How people use LLMs and AIO
Accuracy - the elephant in the room
The Numbers
It’s all about visibility
What if the game changed overnight
Put it into context
VibeLogic & Web Presence Intelligence
References & Resources

The SEO = GEO Debate

There are two schools of thought.

GEO = SEO, such that GEO and SEO are basically the same thing
GEO is a fundamentally different and new technique and discipline that leans heavily on PR

Spoiler alert: Both can be true with a certain perspective.

In the present state, where LLM retrieval generally uses search results, being visible at the top of the search results (SEO) helps with visibility in AIO and LLM searches (GEO).

Say it with me now: Being visible at the top of the search results (SEO) helps with visibility in AIO and LLM searches (GEO)

However, the methods and techniques used to be more prevalent and visible natively. In an LLM that doesn’t use external search, the results are drastically different (GEO) than the heavily link-based page rank type algorithms that search engines use.

This is where Brand visibility and PR come into play. Arguably, you should already be doing these things and have a focus on them in your general marketing activities. There is a reason LLMs favor brands that have a lot of mentions and brand equity… they have earned it (or at least gone after it and earned it). This isn’t new and specific to LLMs, but it is something that they utilize, and it stands to reason.

It’s worth noting that “It stands to reason” is my acid test for almost everything in the SEO world.

If it's not logical, then it's probably not accurate.

How people use LLMs and AIO

Another much less talked about, but very important consideration here is that people use LLMs (and to an extent AIOs) differently from how they use a regular search engine.

It breaks down that roughly 20% of volume is traditional search and 80% is a different use case.

And since only 1% of the search market is LLMs, this really only equates to 0.2% of the search market (99.8% search engine and 0.2% LLM search). [1]

Now, I’ll ask: Where would you put your money?

But there’s more to the story. At the end of the day, it’s a different customer journey.

When we look at conversion metrics and quality of traffic vs intent, there are some varying viewpoints.

Some data suggests that the user journey through an LLM brings users to a more educated and qualified point, so when they land on your site, they are more likely to be in a position to convert. Other data shows different behavior between B2B and B2C and some different market sectors also show some different behaviors. When looking at aggregate data, there is not much difference between the user behavior.

Accuracy - the Elephant in the Room

Another thing that doesn’t get as much press as it should is how horrendously wrong the results can be [3]. Downright dangerous in some cases… hilariously awkward in others.

A photo of slices of pizza falling from the sky and a bottle of glue being used to hold the toppings on used to show the sometimes lacking of truth in GEO

Case in point: Gluing pizza toppings to stop them sliding off!

Let’s not forget that the backend technology here was literally designed to make things up.

“Generative AI…Generative… I.e, the rules are made up.”

For years, Google was at pains to point out it was a search engine and not a truth or fact engine. If you search for something that’s inaccurate, you will get results that are related to that. YMYL (Your Money or Your Life) and EEAT (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) concepts significantly addressed this. Still, if you search for something very specific and someone has produced content that is completely made-up and presented it as fact, most search engines will serve it… because that is their job.

Fast forward to the generative engine, and it sure generates some porky pies! (A little British lingo for you.)

The Numbers

The total market share is large [1], but it is only large in terms of its user base.

There is a roughly 80/20 split in use cases [1] where the majority of LLM use is not search at all, but other new generative tasks not performed by search engines.

The number of active users [2] is very high. However, the numbers from those active users are significantly inflated as multiple chains of conversations replace what would traditionally be one search. It is true that even with traditional search, people often make several refinements to their query.

Another thing driving this adoption is FOMO, (aka Fear of Missing Out). People want to be the first. Everyone wants to beat the competition to the punch, so people disproportionately react to it.

People also tend to flock to vanity metrics when there is a lack of understanding and an absence of clear data. Example: Ranking No.1 for 1000 terms nobody searches for.

This was a common sell in the early days of search marketing, where unscrupulous companies would sell things like “we will get you 10 top 10 rankings in 100 different search engines”. This sounded like (and was positioned as) something that would get you 1000s of ranking results. The reality was that the companies providing this “service” would attempt to get you the same 10 rankings on all of the search engines, but these terms had almost 0 competition and 0 traffic, so they could easily get you the rankings. In the end, they would deliver contractually what they said they would do, but it provided 0 business value.

And yes, multiple search engine rankings were a thing back in the pre-Google days when I was doing SEO.

It’s all about visibility

When it comes down to it, it’s about being visible everywhere your audience is. This is something of a slogan that we have at VibeLogic and it’s built into our DNA.

The biggest problem with SEO data is that it got stuck in a channel, and one that is siloed and doesn’t know where it should live. Add to that GenAI, LLM and AIO, and there is now a new part of the visibility landscape to consider.

Since a lot of it is “borrowed” from the traditional places you would get visibility, it is not an entirely new continent; it is just an expanding suburb that we need to pay attention to.

What if the game changed overnight

If the major search engines suddenly stopped using their indexes and algorithms they have spent decades perfecting, what would happen?

What if Google switched to an LLM only and only gave you Gemini responses?

Where are you visible, and where should you show up?

There is a fairly strong brand and PR case that you should be showing up in the places where your audience is: SEO, GEO, or otherwise.

Put it into context

Like with most things in life, we need the right perspective and to assess things in the appropriate context.

Right now, LLM traffic and AI’s overall penetration in the search market is still relatively minimal.
People use the technology in significantly different ways than traditional search, so this is not an en masse replacement for search.
GEO / SEO / AIO / LLM should all be in your strategy, but don’t put all your eggs in the GEO / AI / LLM basket just because it’s new and shiny.
There is also a very real copyright case and legal ramifications of this technology.
Certain platforms are taking aggressive stances on access from some of these LLM bots and even introducing a pay-for-play system for consuming content.

Dare I say it, the open web battle has begun!

VibeLogic and Web Presence Intelligence

At VibeLogic we have always had the people-first philosophy of being visible everywhere your audience is. This transcends a single channel (SEO) and takes a more holistic landscape-based approach.

So, we take the way people use these tools, the indicators and insights they give us into the user-side demand and the visibility supply side, and use it to our (and more importantly, your) advantage.