Direct answer
SEO optimizes your visibility in classic search engines (Google), which display a list of links. GEO optimizes your visibility in the answers of generative AIs (ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity), which compose a piece of text. They aren't rivals: GEO leans heavily on SEO (AIs consult the indexed web), but it doesn't boil down to it. The answer to "do you have to choose" is no — you need to combine the two. And in both cases, you have to measure the results, which is a discipline of its own.
The problem
A convenient line is going around: "SEO is dead, make way for GEO." It's convenient because it sells a rupture, a novelty, an urgency. It's false.
The truth is more boring, and therefore less marketable: SEO and GEO coexist, feed off each other, and don't play the same role. Conflating the two — or pitting them against each other — leads to bad budget decisions.
The idea to grasp
Two differences shape everything.
What you're aiming for isn't the same.
- With SEO, you aim for a position in a list of links. The ultimate goal is the click: bringing the user to your site.
- With GEO, you aim for a citation in a generated answer. The goal is the mention: being named, recommended, in the text the AI produces — often without a click.
The mechanics aren't the same.
- A search engine ranks pages according to criteria (relevance, authority, technical quality).
- A generative AI composes an answer by drawing on its memory and, sometimes, the web. There's no fixed "position 1," and the answer varies from one time to the next.
But here's what ties them together: GEO leans on SEO. AIs feed largely on the indexed web and recognized sources. Content that ranks well, on authoritative sources, has a better chance of being picked up by an AI. Good SEO is often a foundation of GEO — not an alternative.
Bottom line: it's not SEO or GEO. It's SEO and GEO, with complementary goals (the click and the mention).
What you hear everywhere
"SEO is dead." False. Google still drives the bulk of web traffic, and AIs lean on the indexed web. SEO is changing its role, not disappearing.
"GEO is going to replace everything." Premature. GEO is young, its criteria are opaque, and it depends in part on SEO. Betting 100% on it at SEO's expense is risky.
"If my SEO foundations are shaky, I'll switch to GEO." Backwards. If the technical foundations are shaky, SEO stays the priority — GEO is built partly on top of it.
My core stance holds for both: facts only. You don't settle SEO/GEO on a slogan, but on what you actually measure — where you're visible, where you're not, and whether the actions change anything.
My take: combine them, and measure each channel
From here on, the register shifts: we're situating measurement.
SEO and GEO are two complementary actions. But acting without measuring is flying blind. And the two channels aren't measured the same way:
- SEO has established, neutral tools (Search Console, Analytics): positions, clicks, traffic.
- GEO doesn't yet have its neutral measurement instrument in place. Measuring AI visibility means querying the models repeatedly, in a controlled and dated way — a specific kind of work.