# GEO and SEO: get found in ChatGPT and Google's AI Overview | Fokuus [Home](https://fokuus.be/en/) [Blog](https://fokuus.be/en/blog/) GEO and SEO: being found in ChatGPT and the AI Overview # GEO and SEO: being found in ChatGPT and the AI Overview What is GEO and how does it differ from SEO? What Google and OpenAI themselves say about it, what our own numbers show, and why you don't pay separately for it. [Anton Pycarelle](https://fokuus.be/en/about/) 25 September 20267 min read time ## In this article - [What Google and OpenAI themselves write about it](https://fokuus.be/#wat-google-en-openai-er-zelf-over-schrijven) - [What we built ourselves on fokuus.be](https://fokuus.be/#wat-we-op-fokuus-be-zelf-bouwden) - [Why AI Overviews also cite pages from position 26](https://fokuus.be/#waarom-ai-overzichten-ook-pagina-s-van-plaats-26-citeren) - [Where I would allocate separate budget](https://fokuus.be/#waar-ik-wel-apart-budget-zou-vrijmaken) - [A GEO line in your SEO quote](https://fokuus.be/#een-geo-lijn-in-je-seo-offerte) - [Yes, we also have an AI check](https://fokuus.be/#ja-ook-wij-hebben-een-ai-check) Don't pay separately for GEO. That GEO builds on SEO is what you read from most agencies that write about it, and Google says so itself. Where I drop off is the next step: making it a separate package with its own monthly price. What a Flemish SME needs to appear in ChatGPT or in Google's AI Overview is largely already part of a solid SEO track, plus two checks you do once. First the concepts. GEO stands for generative engine optimization: the work of getting your website used and cited in AI answers, like those from ChatGPT or Google's AI Overview. SEO, search engine optimization, is the work of ranking high in regular search results. ## What Google and OpenAI themselves write about it Google is notably clear in its own guide. From Google's perspective, optimizing for generative AI in Search is "optimizing for the search experience, and therefore still SEO" ([Google Search Central](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/ai-optimization-guide) ). AI Overviews pull their sources from the regular search index, and the model can look up related sub-questions itself. Google calls that "query fan-out". To qualify, your page must be indexed and able to appear with a snippet in search results. Also, your site must not be excluded from generative AI features in Search Console; that setting is on by default ([Google Search Console Help](https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/16908024) ). ChatGPT works differently. According to OpenAI, it can search the web when your question benefits from current information, or when the user specifically asks for it ([OpenAI Help](https://help.openai.com/en/articles/9237897-chatgpt-search) ). If it doesn't search, the answer comes from the model itself, and you have no direct control over that from your website. For the search part, OpenAI states that every public website can appear, as long as you don't block the search crawler OAI-SearchBot ([OpenAI Help](https://help.openai.com/en/articles/12627856-publishers-and-developers-faq) ). At Google, the steps up to an AI Overview are the same as for a regular search result. In addition, there are two one-time checks. In the articles that rank at the top on Google for "geo seo", extra tips come up: schema markup, Q&A blocks, mentions on Reddit or Quora. In the same guide, Google has a list of things you can ignore for Search, and similar tips appear there: breaking your text into chunks, rewriting specially for AI, collecting fake mentions. Structured data is not a requirement for AI functions, though it remains useful for rich snippets. Real mentions are another story; I'll come back to that later. ## What we built ourselves on fokuus.be On our own site we went much further than an average SME would ever need. Since 21 September 2026, there's an llms.txt on fokuus.be: a text file that tells AI systems at once who we are, what we do and which pages matter. Every content page has a Markdown version, and there's a public read-only API with an OpenAPI description and an MCP server. That allows an AI assistant to request our services, published rates and pages directly, read-only and without an account. For Google Search that changes nothing, and Google writes as much [itself](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/ai-optimization-guide) : Search ignores llms.txt files, they don't help your visibility and they don't harm it. That layer is intended for AI assistants and agents outside Google. Whether it yields anything there, we still measure. What we do know is in our Google Analytics. From 1 January to 24 September 2026, we counted 61 Belgian visits that came organically through Google, and 4 via ChatGPT: three on our homepage, one on a blog post, the first as early as February. ChatGPT sent those people to regular pages, before we had an llms.txt or API. Four visits in nine months prove nothing more. They don't prove that ChatGPT is unimportant either: if someone encounters us in ChatGPT and then googles our name, they can come into Analytics as a Google visit. ## Why AI Overviews also cite pages from position 26 The strongest argument for GEO as a separate field is that AI answers don't just take over the top ten. That's correct, and we measured it ourselves. The AI Overview that Google showed in Belgium on 25 September for "geo seo" mentioned eight sources. Four of them appeared with that same page in the regular top ten, at positions 1, 2, 3 and 8. Two ranked lower, at positions 11 and 26, and two we did not find in the first 29 regular results. Google confirms the pattern: AI features show according to Google "a broader and more diverse set" of links than a classic search query ([Google](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/ai-features) ). Half the cited pages were not in the regular top ten. Own measurement in live Google search results for Belgium, 25 September 2026. There's also the fear that fewer people click through when the answer is already at the top. Google doesn't give a figure in its documentation for website owners about how many clicks disappear that way. It only says that clicks from results with an AI Overview are "higher quality", by which it means that people tend to stay on the site longer. That's a seller rating its own product. Still, it changes little about what you need to do. Those sources outside the top ten also came from Google's search index, because that's where AI Overviews get their sources. They likely scored on one of the sub-questions the model can look up itself. What works for that are pages that thoroughly answer one specific question with something that's nowhere else. Google calls that "non-commodity content", content that goes beyond what everyone already knows, and counts it as standard SEO basics. You can measure it with what you already have: ChatGPT appends `utm_source=chatgpt.com` from its links, and Search Console shows a separate report for generative AI once your site gets enough impressions there ([Google Search Console Help](https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/16984139) ). ## Where I would allocate separate budget If you sell mainly on name and reputation, and your customers ask ChatGPT which company in your sector is best, then what others write about you matters: reviews, trade press, comparison sites, real forum discussions. Google itself states that its AI features also show what is said in blogs, videos and forums about products and services. Investing in that is worthwhile, but it's PR and reputation work that largely happens outside your website. Then there are the two checks that are truly AI-specific, both one-time. The first is that Search Console setting from above. The second is OAI-SearchBot: sites that block that crawler are missing from ChatGPT search answers, according to OpenAI. OpenAI recommends allowing it in your robots.txt and passing traffic from its published IP addresses ([OpenAI, crawlers](https://developers.openai.com/api/docs/bots) ), something that a strict firewall can sometimes block. And if you have a site with thousands of pages in a market full of big players, a tool that tracks AI mentions might be worth its money. For a 20-page SME site, it's not. ## A GEO line in your SEO quote What SEO costs per month depends on how many hours of work it involves: a monthly fee essentially buys hours, so ask how many hours it is and what happens in those hours. You pay for a technical cleanup once; writing new content or tracking results can happen every month. At Fokuus you get for [SEO and search visibility](https://fokuus.be/en/oplossingen/seo-leadgen/) a customized proposal with a clear price upfront, and we charge standalone assignments at 80 euros per hour excl. VAT. If your quote has a separate GEO line, place it next to what's already part of a solid SEO track: allowing crawlers, text that's readable in HTML, structured data, a well-maintained Google Business Profile. If anything remains after that, like an llms.txt or tracking AI mentions, then ask how many hours that is and what it brings your business. ## Yes, we also have an AI check We also call our free scan an [AI check](https://fokuus.be/en/ai-check/) , and on that page you can ask for help with the improvements. Look especially at what's inside. The check verifies whether your page can be displayed, whether you have a robots.txt and sitemap, whether titles and canonicals are correct, and whether your key content is already in the HTML. It also looks for structured data, machine-readable contact information, and an llms.txt, and tests HTTPS, mobile display and speed. Except for the llms.txt, that's an SEO check. It's the technical foundation that both Google and AI assistants rely on, and exactly the kind of work you get right once. You see your score after the scan, without an account. If you score low, start with [our SEO tips for SMEs](https://fokuus.be/en/blog/seo-tips/) or a quick [website analysis](https://fokuus.be/en/blog/website-analyse/) , and charge that work for what it is. 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