- SEO gets a page ranked in search results; GEO (generative engine optimization) gets your brand named and linked inside answers from ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude and Google's AI Overviews.
- Most of the work is shared: Google says its AI features run on its core Search ranking systems, and a page must be indexed and eligible for a snippet to appear in them.
- What GEO adds is mostly access and evidence: let each AI search crawler in, keep product data complete in your feeds, write answer-first pages with sourced facts, and measure AI referral orders, not rankings.
SEO gets your pages ranked in search results so people click through. GEO, or generative engine optimization, gets your brand named and linked inside the answers that ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini and Google's AI Overviews write. AEO, answer engine optimization, is an older name for the same goal. Most of the work overlaps: Google says its AI features are rooted in its core Search ranking and quality systems. The differences are where the answer gets assembled, which crawlers need access, and how you measure the result. This article covers each one, with what it means for a Shopify store.
What is the difference between GEO and SEO?
| SEO | GEO | |
|---|---|---|
| Goal | A ranked link the buyer clicks | Your brand named, linked or shown as a product inside an AI answer |
| Where it shows | Google and Bing results pages | ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini, Google AI Overviews and AI Mode |
| Who reads your page | Googlebot, Bingbot | Each AI company's own search crawler, plus the search index it draws on |
| What wins | Relevance, quality, links, technical health | The same, plus clear answers and facts an AI can quote and attribute |
| Unit of success | Position and clicks | Citations and mentions, then the clicks and orders they send |
| How to measure | Search Console, Shopify sessions from organic search | Search Console's generative AI report, AI referral sessions and orders, a fixed prompt list |
The short version: SEO is how you get into the index. GEO is how you get picked out of it when an AI writes the answer.
What is generative engine optimization?
The term comes from a research paper, GEO: Generative Engine Optimization by Aggarwal and others, first posted in November 2023 and accepted to KDD 2024. The authors built a benchmark of search queries and tested ways of rewriting web pages to see which ones the AI answer cited more. Their headline result: GEO methods boosted visibility in generative engine responses by up to 40%.
Two caveats from the same paper matter. The results varied by subject, so what worked for one kind of query did not work for all of them. And it was a test on a research benchmark, not a measurement of live ChatGPT or Google traffic. Treat "up to 40%" as proof the effect is real, not as a forecast for your store.
What is AEO, and is AEO vs SEO different from GEO vs SEO?
Answer engine optimization started as the work of winning featured snippets and voice assistant answers: one short, direct answer that a search engine reads out or shows above the results. As AI answers replaced many of those boxes, AEO and GEO came to mean the same thing in practice. Google's own guide names both terms in one sentence, and says many suggested "hacks" for them aren't effective for Google Search.
So the AEO vs SEO question has the same answer as GEO vs SEO. Keep doing SEO. Add the few things below that AI answers need.
Does GEO replace SEO?
No. For Google, the two are the same system. Google's guide to its generative AI features, updated July 10, 2026, says:
- AI Overviews and AI Mode pull pages from the Google Search index through retrieval-augmented generation, and use "query fan-out" to run several related searches for one question.
- To appear in them, a page must be indexed and eligible to show in Google Search with a snippet.
- SEO best practices "continue to be relevant", and the content that will most likely influence your AI presence is unique, useful, people-first content.
The other engines run their own indexes, which is the part SEO alone does not cover. ChatGPT search uses pages fetched by OAI-SearchBot. Perplexity uses PerplexityBot. Claude's web search uses Claude-SearchBot. A store that ranks well in Google but blocks those crawlers, by accident in robots.txt or in a CDN's bot settings, can be invisible in those answers.
Why does GEO matter for clicks?
Because an AI answer often ends the search. A Pew Research Center study, published July 2025 from the browsing of US adults in March 2025, found:
| Google search page | Clicked a search result |
|---|---|
| With an AI summary | 8% of visits |
| Without an AI summary | 15% of visits |
Clicks on the links inside the AI summary happened in 1% of visits. And 18% of the searches in the study showed an AI summary at all.
Two things follow for a store. Fewer clicks reach any site from a search that shows an AI answer, so ranking first is worth less on those searches. And the brands named inside the answer get seen even when nobody clicks, which is why being the cited source matters.
How do AI engines choose which products to show?
For ecommerce, product data matters as much as pages.
- ChatGPT shows products in a carousel when it judges them relevant to what the person asked. OpenAI's shopping help page says it uses structured metadata such as price and product description from first-party and third-party providers. When it lists merchants for a product, it ranks them on availability, price, quality, and whether the seller is the maker or primary seller. Results are not ads, per the same page.
- Shopify stores already send product data to ChatGPT through Shopify Catalog, according to OpenAI. Merchants can also apply to share a direct product feed.
- Google says Merchant Center feeds and Business Profiles help products and businesses appear in AI responses as well as in regular results.
In practice: complete titles, accurate prices and stock, real reviews and a clear "made by" signal are GEO work for a store. A product with missing attributes in the feed gives the AI less to match against the buyer's question.
Which AI crawlers should a Shopify store allow?
OpenAI, Anthropic and Google use separate crawlers for search and for model training, so you can say no to training and still be eligible for AI search. Perplexity says PerplexityBot is not used to train models.
| Crawler | Company | What it does | If you block it |
|---|---|---|---|
| OAI-SearchBot | OpenAI | Builds ChatGPT search results | You won't be shown in ChatGPT search answers |
| GPTBot | OpenAI | Collects pages that may train models | Your content is excluded from training |
| ChatGPT-User | OpenAI | Fetches a page when a user asks | Robots.txt may not apply; user-initiated |
| Claude-SearchBot | Anthropic | Indexes pages for Claude's search | Lower visibility in Claude search results |
| ClaudeBot | Anthropic | Collects pages that may train models | Future content excluded from training |
| Claude-User | Anthropic | Fetches a page when a user asks | Claude can't read your page for that user |
| PerplexityBot | Perplexity | Builds Perplexity search results | Your pages aren't surfaced in Perplexity results |
| Google-Extended | Gemini training and grounding | No effect on Google Search or ranking |
Sources: OpenAI, Anthropic, Perplexity, Google. Shopify stores change these rules in the theme's robots.txt.liquid file. Our post on llms.txt shows the robots.txt we use on this site.
What should a Shopify store do differently for GEO?
Start with SEO. Then add these:
- Let the AI search crawlers in. Check robots.txt and your CDN or firewall bot settings for OAI-SearchBot, Claude-SearchBot and PerplexityBot. Decide on the training crawlers separately.
- Serve the content in HTML. Product details, reviews and FAQs that only appear after JavaScript runs are harder for crawlers to read. Google can process JavaScript; don't assume every AI crawler does.
- Answer the question in the first paragraph. Buyers ask AI full questions: "best waterproof hiking boots for wide feet under $200". A collection or guide page that answers that plainly, near the top, is easier to quote.
- Give facts an AI can attribute. Specific numbers, materials, sizes, test results and dated sources, on your own pages. Google's guide asks for "non-commodity" content: first-hand experience over summaries of what everyone else says.
- Keep product data complete everywhere. Shopify product fields, Merchant Center and any marketplace listings should agree on price, stock and attributes.
- Earn real mentions. AI answers draw on reviews, forums, videos and press. Google warns that seeking inauthentic mentions doesn't help.
What Google says you can skip for its own AI features: llms.txt files, breaking pages into small chunks, rewriting copy "for AI", and special schema markup. Structured data is still worth keeping for rich results in regular search.
How do you measure GEO?
Measure orders, then visibility.
- Google Search Console has a generative AI performance report for how your content shows in Google's AI features.
- Shopify and GA4 show sessions and orders from referrers such as chatgpt.com, perplexity.ai and claude.ai. That is the number that pays for the work.
- A fixed prompt list, checked by hand every month in each engine, shows whether you are named and which page is cited.
Worked example: Demo Brand
Demo Brand is a made-up Shopify store selling running socks, used here as an example. Its monthly check looks like this:
| Prompt | ChatGPT | Perplexity | Google AI Mode |
|---|---|---|---|
| best running socks for blisters | Named, product page cited | Not named | Named, no link |
| merino vs synthetic running socks | Not named | Guide cited | Guide cited |
| Demo Brand socks review | Reddit thread cited | Own reviews page cited | Own reviews page cited |
Reading it: the merino guide earns citations in two engines, so it gets updated first and linked from the product pages. ChatGPT names the brand but not the guide, so the guide's opening paragraph gets a plainer answer. The review prompt shows a forum thread where Demo Brand has no reply. Answers change by user and by day, so the list tracks direction, not exact positions.
What can't anyone promise about GEO?
A citation. AI answers vary by person: OpenAI says ChatGPT's product picks consider the user's own context, such as memory and custom instructions. The engines change often, and none of them publish how they pick sources. Be wary of anyone guaranteeing placement in ChatGPT or AI Overviews. What you can control is access, the quality of the pages and product data, and how you measure the result.
We do this work for Shopify brands as part of AI search optimization and Shopify SEO.
Frequently asked questions
Is GEO the same as AEO? In practice, yes. AEO began with featured snippets and voice answers; GEO names the same work for AI-written answers. Both aim to make your page the source an engine quotes.
Is SEO dead because of AI search? No. Google says its AI features use its core Search ranking systems, and a page must be indexed and snippet-eligible to appear in them. SEO is the entry ticket for GEO.
Does llms.txt help with GEO? Not for Google, which says Search doesn't use it. Log studies show AI search crawlers rarely request it. Our llms.txt guide covers the data and our own file.
Can I block AI training but still show up in ChatGPT search? Yes. Block GPTBot and allow OAI-SearchBot in robots.txt. OpenAI treats them separately, and Anthropic does the same with ClaudeBot and Claude-SearchBot.
Do I need special schema markup for AI answers? No. Google says no special schema is required for its AI features. Keep Product, Review and Organization markup because it still earns rich results in regular search.
Michael Bui founded and runs BLOOM10X, a growth agency for ecommerce brands on Shopify. About BLOOM10X
