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first published 2026-10-30
Second Opinion, episode 1: GEO is SEO in a new coat
Do you need GEO now? Not as a separate job. AI search is real, but AI Overviews mostly quote pages that already rank in Google's normal top ten. This is the written version of Second Opinion, episode 1, with every number from the video and where it came from.
1,081 words · 5 min read · ai search
Transcript840 words
So there's a claim going round at the moment, and if you run a business you've probably had it land in your inbox. It goes: SEO's finished, you need GEO now. Generative engine optimisation. Some people call it AEO, answer engine optimisation, it's the same thing. And the pitch is basically, the stuff you've been doing for years doesn't work any more, so here's a new thing, and here's the invoice for it.
This is Second Opinion. Every week I take whatever the big claim is, and I'll tell you what's actually true in it, what's rubbish, and then what I'd actually do about it on Monday.
So, to be fair, some of it is true. The surfaces are real. Google said back in May that AI Mode had gone past a billion users a month, so that's not a niche thing any more. And the way people ask is different in there. In AI Mode the questions people type are about three times longer than a normal Google search, because you talk to it like you'd talk to a person. So if your page only answers the short version of the question, you're going to miss the long one.
And the other thing, which I see all the time, is the machines quote other stuff, not just websites. Every study I've seen of what these AI answers cite keeps finding Reddit threads, YouTube videos, review sites, and only a small share of the citations actually landing on a brand's own site.
So if your plan was, I'll rank for two keywords and wait for the phone to ring, I mean, that plan's been dead a while, to be honest. That part of the claim I'll give them.
Here's where it falls apart though. GEO gets sold as a different job. It isn't. Semrush looked at what AI Overviews actually cite, and seventy-six per cent of the citations were pages already in the normal top ten for that search. Ahrefs did it a different way in March and got thirty-seven per cent of AI-cited pages ranking top ten for the same query. Different method, same direction. The machine isn't going out and finding new pages. It's quoting the ones that already won. So if you weren't on page one before, a new acronym isn't going to put you there.
And when you actually look at what gets sold as GEO work, it goes into two piles. One pile is just SEO with a different label on it. Clear structure, answer the question near the top of the page, proper headings, fast pages, structured data. I've been doing that for years. The other pile is, honestly, nonsense. The llms.txt file, for example. Google's own guidance says you don't need any new machine-readable files or AI text files, and John Mueller's said more than once that no AI system actually uses it. "AI schema", which doesn't exist. Paying people to mention you in forums, which gets you banned. That's the stuff with the big invoice attached.
And here's the thing nobody selling GEO wants to tell you. You can't buy a position in ChatGPT, because every time one of these models gets updated, the sources move. SE Ranking watched a Gemini upgrade, and forty-two per cent of the domains it had been citing got replaced. Writesonic found a newer GPT model was citing brand websites forty-seven per cent of the time, where the older one was at fifty-seven. So nobody's holding a position in something that basically re-decides every few months.
So, yeah. They're right that where people search has changed. They're wrong that the job's changed.
Okay, so Monday. First thing, keep the SEO programme you've already got going. Don't pay for the same work twice because somebody's renamed it.
Second, put two new numbers in your monthly report. How often you're getting cited in AI answers, and how often your brand gets mentioned in them. If you only count clicks, you're going to undercount yourself from here on, because a lot of people are getting the answer and never clicking.
And third, take your best pages and make them easy to quote. Put the question at the top, a straight answer under it, a date on it, a name on it, and where the information came from. That's honestly the whole GEO to-do list, and it's been good SEO for about ten years.
The one number I'd keep an eye on. Nought point two eight per cent. Ahrefs measured it in March across about seventy-five thousand sites, and that's the share of visits that all the AI chatbots put together actually sent. It's growing fast, from basically nothing. So check it every quarter for your own site. When it gets to a few per cent, the maths changes for you. Before that, it doesn't.
That's Second Opinion, every Wednesday. Thursdays is the free course, AI Search for Beginners. Every number I've used today is in the description with where it came from and when. I'm Jamie McKaye, see you Thursday.
word for word from the captions on YouTube
You don't need GEO as a separate job. GEO, generative engine optimisation, is mostly the SEO you should be doing anyway, with a new name on it. AI Overviews tend to quote pages that already rank. Semrush found 76% of what they cite was already in the normal top ten for that search.
The claim isn't all rubbish, though. Where people search has changed, and the questions have got longer. This page goes with Second Opinion, episode 1 on YouTube, out on 30 October 2026. Every number from the video is at the bottom, with where it came from and when.
The claim
"You need GEO now." If you run a business you've probably had some version of it land in your inbox. The pitch is basically that SEO's finished, the stuff you've been doing for years doesn't work any more, so here's a new thing, and here's the invoice for it. Some people call it AEO, answer engine optimisation, and it's the same pitch. If the letters are starting to blur, the glossary page goes through GEO, AEO, LLM SEO and the rest one at a time.
What's right about it
To be fair, some of it is true. The surfaces are real. Google said in May 2026 that AI Mode had gone past a billion users a month, so it's not a niche thing any more. And people ask differently in there. In AI Mode the questions are about three times longer than a normal Google search, because you talk to it like you'd talk to a person. If your page only answers the short version of the question, you're going to miss the long one.
The other thing, which I see all the time, is that the machines quote a lot more than websites. Every study I've seen of what AI answers cite keeps finding Reddit threads and YouTube videos in there, review sites too, and only a small share of the citations land on a brand's own site.
So if your plan was to rank for two keywords and wait for the phone to ring, that plan's been dead a while, to be honest. That part of the claim I'll give them.
What's wrong with it
GEO gets sold as a different job, and it isn't one. Semrush looked at what AI Overviews actually cite, and 76% of the citations were pages already in the normal top ten for that search. Ahrefs did it a different way in March 2026 and found 37.1% of AI-cited pages ranking top ten for the same query. The methods are different and they point the same way. The machine is quoting the pages that already won, so if you weren't on page one before, a new acronym isn't going to put you there.
When you look at what actually gets sold as GEO work, it goes into two piles. One pile is just SEO with a different label on it: clear structure, the answer near the top of the page, proper headings, fast pages, structured data. I've been doing that for years.
The other pile is, honestly, nonsense. The llms.txt file is the obvious one. Google's own guidance on AI features (updated 10 December 2025) says you don't need any new machine-readable files or AI text files, and John Mueller from Google has said more than once that no AI system actually uses it. Then there's "AI schema", which doesn't exist, and paying people to mention you in forums, which gets you banned. That's the stuff with the big invoice attached.
And here's the bit nobody selling GEO wants to tell you. You can't buy a position in ChatGPT, because every time one of these models gets updated, the sources move. SE Ranking watched a Gemini upgrade, and 42% of the domains it had been citing got replaced. Writesonic found a newer GPT model citing brand websites 47% of the time, where the older one was at 57%. So nobody's holding a position in something that basically re-decides every few months.
What I'd do on Monday
- Keep the SEO programme you've already got going. Don't pay for the same work twice because somebody's renamed it.
- Put two new numbers in your monthly report: how often you're getting cited in AI answers, and how often your brand gets mentioned in them. If you only count clicks you're going to undercount yourself from here on, because a lot of people get the answer and never click.
- Take your best pages and make them easy to quote, which is honestly the whole GEO to-do list, and it's been good SEO for about ten years. Put the question at the top and a straight answer under it, with a date on it, a name on it, and where the information came from.
The number to watch
The one I'd keep an eye on is 0.28%. Ahrefs measured it in March 2026 across 74,752 sites, and it's the share of visits that all the AI chatbots put together actually sent. It's growing fast, from basically nothing, so check the same share for your own site every quarter. When it gets to a few per cent, the maths changes for you.
Every number in the video
| Number | What it is | Where it came from, and when |
|---|---|---|
| Past 1 billion a month | AI Mode users | Google, at its developer event, May 2026 (as reported) |
| About 3 times longer | AI Mode questions, compared with a normal Google search | Google, at its developer event, May 2026 (as reported) |
| 76% | AI Overview citations that were already in the organic top ten for that search | Semrush, 2026 |
| 37.1% | AI-cited pages ranking in the top ten for the same query (thirty-seven in the video) | Ahrefs, March 2026 |
| 42% | Domains a Gemini model had been citing that were replaced after an upgrade | SE Ranking, 2026 |
| 47% and 57% | How often a newer GPT model cited brand websites, and how often the older one did | Writesonic, 2026 |
| 0.28% | Share of visits sent by all the AI chatbots put together, across 74,752 sites (about seventy-five thousand in the video) | Ahrefs, March 2026 |
The guidance and the quotes: Google Search Central, "AI features and your website", updated 10 Dec 2025. John Mueller on llms.txt: "FWIW no AI system currently uses llms.txt" (Bluesky, June 2025) and "purely speculative for now" (Reddit, June 2026), as reported by Search Engine Journal and Search Engine Roundtable, checked 30 Oct 2026.
Jamie runs Sequentis, an SEO and AI-search agency.
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Technical SEO consultant and full-stack developer in Hersham, Surrey, in practice since 2007. One person, no handoffs: the audits, the code and the writing come from the same pair of hands. This site is the working proof — it grades itself on the same instrument it runs for clients.