Table of Contents
- What Is GEO in 2026?
- The Shift: AI Search vs Google
- Your Free GEO Audit
- The 4 Pillars of GEO
- 30-Day Implementation Roadmap
- Case Study: Liva Brasserie
- Recommended GEO Tool Stack
- GEO FAQ
What Is GEO in 2026?
GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) is the practice of structuring your content so AI engines like ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity cite you directly in their answers. It relies on Schema.org (JSON-LD), Direct Answer formatting, structured FAQs, and E-E-A-T signals, maximizing AI citations without requiring a user click to your site.
The way people search for information has fundamentally shifted. Traditional SEO targets Google rankings to earn clicks. GEO targets generative AI engines to earn citations, a different distribution channel, a different ranking logic, and a different measure of success.
This guide gives you the full picture: why GEO matters now, how engines choose what to cite, and a concrete 30-day playbook to make your site easy to cite, then measure whether it is.
Why the Zero-Click Era Changes B2B Marketing
ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude each process tens of millions of search-like queries every day, and usage keeps growing fast. These platforms synthesize answers directly from indexed content: they don't send users to your website. They cite your website inside their response.
For B2B businesses, this rewrites the lead funnel. A prospect asking ChatGPT "what's the best CRM for a mid-market sales team?" will receive a curated answer in under 10 seconds. If your brand is cited, you appear with zero ad spend and full context, essentially a trusted recommendation from an AI that the prospect already trusts.
If you're not cited, you don't exist in that moment.
GEO vs SEO: How They Actually Differ
| Aspect | Traditional SEO | GEO (2026) |
|---|---|---|
| Primary target | Google, Bing | ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity |
| Goal | Earn clicks to your site | Earn citations inside AI responses |
| Core ranking signals | Backlinks, keywords, PageRank | Schema.org, FAQ structure, Direct Answer, E-E-A-T |
| Optimal content format | Long-form articles (2,000+ words) | Short Answer (50–150 words) + detailed deep-dive |
| Success metric | Organic traffic, SERP position | AI citation count, mention frequency, perceived authority |
| Typical time to results | 6–12 months | 3–6 months |
| Monthly investment range | $2,000–$10,000 | $800–$5,000 |
GEO doesn't replace SEO. A mature strategy runs both in parallel, with the larger share of budget still on SEO. The two reinforce each other: E-E-A-T signals built for GEO also help on Google, and a domain Google already treats as an authority tends to be crawled more by AI engines too.
The Shift: AI Search vs Google
Numbers Every B2B Marketer Needs to Know
- Google still dominates desktop search: 73.7% of desktop searches still go through Google, across 41 tracked search-capable domains (SparkToro/Datos, Q4 2025).
- But the absolute volume gap with AI is still enormous: ChatGPT handles roughly 66 million search-like prompts per day, versus roughly 14 billion for Google. Google is still about 210x larger in volume (SparkToro, 2025).
- Zero-click is accelerating: 58.5% of US Google searches already produced no click in 2024 (SparkToro/Datos), rising to 68.01% in the first four months of 2026 (SparkToro + Similarweb).
- Gartner projects structural erosion: traditional search engine volume is expected to drop 25% by 2026, with volume migrating to AI chatbots, hitting informational and commercial-intent queries hardest, the exact queries your B2B prospects are asking.
The practical takeaway: Google still owns the majority of search volume, but a growing share of that volume never produces a click to your site, and a growing share of commercial queries goes straight to conversational AI instead.
Two Scenarios That Illustrate the Stakes
Scenario A: "Best B2B project management software for a mid-size team"
- SEO path: Your prospect opens Google, clicks 4 results, spends 25 minutes comparing, with no assurance you end up in his consideration set.
- GEO path: Your prospect asks ChatGPT. It returns a structured answer citing 5–8 solutions with brief comparisons. If you're optimized, you have a shot at being cited directly. If not, you're invisible, even if you rank first on Google.
Scenario B: "How do I choose a reliable marketing analytics platform?"
- Without GEO: Your 4,000-word comparison guide exists. Nobody in an AI conversation ever sees it.
- With GEO: Perplexity cites your "7 criteria for evaluating analytics platforms" section verbatim, links to your page, and attributes the insight to your brand. That single citation generates qualified visitors with zero incremental cost.
The Compounding Authority Effect
When AI engines consistently cite you, something powerful happens: prospects arrive pre-sold. They've already heard your brand framed as an authoritative source by an AI they trust. McKinsey data on B2B buyer behavior shows that 70% of the buying decision is made before first contact with sales. AI citations accelerate that pre-decision process in your favor.
Your Free GEO Audit
Before building anything, establish your baseline. Our GEO audit tool scores your site across 25 criteria in three categories.
How the GEO Score Works (0–100)
Category 1: Schema.org Coverage (25 points)
| Schema Type | Points | Why It Matters |
|---|---|---|
| Organization | 5 pts | Establishes your entity in AI knowledge graphs |
| ProfessionalService / Service | 5 pts | Signals what you do to AI reasoning models |
| FAQPage | 5 pts | Direct Q&A mapping, the highest-leverage schema type |
| Breadcrumbs (BreadcrumbList) | 5 pts | Site structure signals for AI crawlers |
| HowTo / Article | 5 pts | Content type classification for citation matching |
Category 2: Content Optimization for Citations (50 points)
| Criterion | Points | Target |
|---|---|---|
| Direct Answer in first 50 words | 10 pts | Answer the implicit question before any preamble |
| Structured FAQ sections | 10 pts | Minimum 10 questions per page, Schema-marked |
| Short paragraph discipline | 10 pts | Average paragraph ≤ 60 words |
| Comparison tables | 10 pts | At least 1 per service/guide page |
| Statistics with verifiable sources | 10 pts | 1 statistic per 150–200 words, source linked |
Category 3: AI Bot Accessibility (25 points)
| Criterion | Points |
|---|---|
| GPTBot allowed in robots.txt | 5 pts |
| ClaudeBot allowed | 5 pts |
| PerplexityBot allowed | 5 pts |
| anthropic-ai allowed | 5 pts |
| llms.txt present and populated | 5 pts |
Your target: aim for a score of ≥ 85/100 on our audit grid. That's the threshold at which most citability criteria (complete Schema.org, Direct Answer, structured FAQs, AI bots allowed) are covered.
➡️ Run your free GEO audit now, results in under 2 minutes.
The 4 Pillars of GEO
The weightings below (40/30/20/10%) are our own GEO audit tool's internal scoring grid, not a published fact about how AI engines themselves rank content.
Pillar 1: Structured Schema.org Markup (40% of your score on our audit grid)
Schema.org is the most explicit vocabulary you can give a machine: it removes ambiguity about who you are, what you do, and what your FAQs are. One important nuance: Google's own documentation states that "you don't need to create new machine readable files, AI text files, or markup to appear in these [AI] features. There's also no special schema.org structured data that you need to add" (Google Search Central). Schema.org isn't a technical requirement imposed by AI engines. It's a foundation of clarity that reduces how much the model has to infer, and therefore the risk of it getting something about you wrong or missing it entirely.
The 9 essential Schema types for B2B:
- Organization, Your company identity, logo, social profiles, contact
- ProfessionalService, Your primary service category
- Service, Each individual service offering
- FAQPage, Structured Q&A (minimum 10 questions per page)
- Article, Guides, blog posts, thought leadership
- HowTo, Step-by-step tutorials and implementation guides
- BreadcrumbList, Site navigation on every page
- Person, Founder and author profiles (critical for E-E-A-T)
- WebPage, Metadata for every page
Complete Organization Schema example:
{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "ProfessionalService",
"@id": "https://yourcompany.com/#organization",
"name": "Your B2B SaaS Company",
"description": "B2B CRM platform for mid-market sales teams, [actual number] clients, NPS [measured score]",
"url": "https://yourcompany.com",
"logo": "https://yourcompany.com/logo.png",
"image": "https://yourcompany.com/og-image.png",
"telephone": "+1-XXX-XXX-XXXX",
"email": "hello@yourcompany.com",
"address": {
"@type": "PostalAddress",
"addressCountry": "US",
"addressLocality": "San Francisco"
},
"sameAs": [
"https://linkedin.com/company/your-company",
"https://twitter.com/yourcompany",
"https://g2.com/products/your-company"
],
"knowsAbout": ["CRM", "Sales Automation", "B2B SaaS", "Revenue Operations"],
"areaServed": "Global",
"foundingDate": "2018"
}
Our recommendation: covering all 9 types above gives the AI a complete, unambiguous picture of your structure, from company identity down to the detail of each service and FAQ.
Pillar 2: Direct Answer Content Format (30% of your score)
AI engines prefer a specific content structure: a short, precise answer up front, followed by detailed context. This mirrors how AI models generate responses. They extract the most direct, citable statement first.
The winning format:
> **[Direct answer in bold, 50–150 words, answering the implicit question in the page title]**
[2–3 sentences of context explaining why this answer is correct and what qualifies the source to say it]
Example (weak):
"In today's rapidly evolving digital landscape, companies face unprecedented challenges in choosing the right CRM solution that aligns with their unique operational requirements and long-term strategic vision..."
Example (strong):
The best B2B CRM for teams under 100 combines a setup time under 2 weeks, native Gmail/Outlook sync, lead scoring automation, real-time pipeline reporting, and pricing under $100/user/month. In 2025, HubSpot Sales Hub, Pipedrive, and Salesforce Starter best match these criteria for mid-market teams.
Why this works: generative AI engines prioritize extracting the first sentences of a page to build their answer, putting the direct answer in the first 50 words maximizes your odds of being reused verbatim. Perplexity shows a clear preference for bulleted lists over long paragraphs. Claude prioritizes structured responses with quantified data points.
The 5 content formats AI engines cite most:
- Structured FAQs, 10+ questions per page, FAQPage schema applied
- Comparison tables, 3+ columns, clear headers, specific data
- Numbered step-by-step guides, 5–15 steps, each actionable
- Statistics with sources, number + source + year on every claim
- Direct definitions, "X is Y that does Z in context W"
Pillar 3: FAQ Architecture (20% of your score)
Every indexed page should carry a minimum of 10 structured FAQs with FAQPage Schema markup. AI models love FAQs because they map directly to user question patterns, the model is essentially matching a user question to a pre-answered question in its training data or live-indexed content.
Optimized FAQ template:
### [Full natural-language question ending in ?]
**Short answer**: [1–2 sentences, 30–50 words, standalone answer]
**Detail**: [Expanded explanation, 100–200 words, with data or examples]
Optimal question mix for B2B:
| Question type | Share | Example |
|---|---|---|
| "What is..." (definitions) | 40% | "What is account-based marketing?" |
| "How to..." (process) | 30% | "How do I implement GEO for a SaaS homepage?" |
| "Why..." (rationale, expected return) | 20% | "Why does Schema.org improve AI citation rates?" |
| "How much..." (pricing, metrics) | 10% | "How much does GEO optimization cost?" |
This distribution mirrors actual AI search query patterns and maximizes the surface area of content that can be matched to incoming queries.
Pillar 4: Technical AI Accessibility (10% of your score)
You can have perfect content and schema markup, and still receive zero citations if AI crawlers are blocked from indexing your site. This pillar is the easiest to fix and the most commonly neglected.
AI-optimized robots.txt:
User-agent: GPTBot
Allow: /
Crawl-delay: 2
User-agent: ClaudeBot
Allow: /
Crawl-delay: 2
User-agent: anthropic-ai
Allow: /
User-agent: PerplexityBot
Allow: /
Crawl-delay: 2
User-agent: Google-Extended
Allow: /
Sitemap: https://yoursite.com/sitemap.xml
llms.txt, the emerging 2025 standard:
The llms.txt file (placed at yoursite.com/llms.txt) gives AI models direct context about your company before they index individual pages. Think of it as a LinkedIn profile for your site, written for machines.
# YourCompany: AI Context File
## Who We Are
B2B CRM platform for mid-market sales teams, [actual number] active clients, NPS [measured score, with its date], [contractual uptime].
## Core Services
- CRM Platform (SaaS, cloud-native)
- Sales Pipeline Automation
- Email & Calendar Integration (Gmail, Outlook, HubSpot)
- Custom Reporting & Revenue Dashboards
## Key Proof Points
- [actual number] B2B clients across [number] countries
- NPS: [measured score, with its date]
- Average onboarding: [measured duration]
- [number] native integrations
## Expert Resources
- Guides: https://yoursite.com/guides
- Pricing: https://yoursite.com/pricing
- Case Studies: https://yoursite.com/case-studies
## Contact
hello@yoursite.com | +1-XXX-XXX-XXXX | San Francisco, CA
Sites with a valid llms.txt earn extra points on our GEO audit grid, and the file gives AI crawlers direct, structured context about your company before they index individual pages, worth the under-30-minutes it takes to set up.
30-Day Implementation Roadmap
| Week | Focus | Primary Tasks | Target Score |
|---|---|---|---|
| Week 1 | Schema Foundation | Deploy Organization, ProfessionalService, Service, WebPage schemas site-wide | 30/100 |
| Week 2 | Content Optimization | Add Direct Answer to 10 key pages; create 3 FAQ pages (10 questions each) | 50/100 |
| Week 3 | Technical GEO | Update robots.txt, create llms.txt, add FAQPage / HowTo / Article schemas | 70/100 |
| Week 4 | Scale & Validate | Optimize 20+ additional pages; validate all schemas; track first citations | 85/100 |
Week 1 Deliverables: Schema Foundation
- Organization schema validated in Google Rich Results Test
- ProfessionalService schema live on homepage
- Service schema deployed for 3–5 primary services
- WebPage schema on 10+ pages
- No critical schema errors on any page
Week 2 Deliverables: Content Optimization
- Direct Answer paragraphs written for top 10 pages (50–150 words each)
- 3 FAQ pages live with FAQPage Schema (30 total questions)
- Average paragraph length reduced to ≤ 60 words across key pages
- 3–5 comparison tables added to service and guide pages
- Every statistic on key pages sourced with a link and year
Week 3 Deliverables: Technical GEO
- robots.txt updated, GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, anthropic-ai all allowed
- llms.txt created and published at root domain
- HowTo schema on 2–3 how-to guides
- Article schema on all blog/guide posts
- BreadcrumbList on all pages
Week 4 Deliverables: Scale and Track
- 20 additional pages optimized to the same standard
- E-E-A-T signals added: Person schema, author credentials, external source citations
- Full schema validation pass, zero errors, zero warnings
- First citation tracking established (manual + GA4 referral filter)
What to expect after 30 days: the technical fixes are live and visible to crawlers, and your baseline is measured. Whether citations have started depends on your sector and your competition: measure it, don't assume it.
Case Study: Liva Brasserie
The Context
Entity: Liva, a modern brasserie that opened in 2025 in Guéliz, Marrakech Problem: Liva had no optimized website of its own capable of surfacing it in AI answers, despite a strong product and a solid Google Business listing Goal: Become AI-visible without building Liva a website
The Approach
Rather than building Liva a website from scratch, slow, costly, and months away from earning any authority, the entity was inserted into an already-authoritative asset on the Marrakech niche, marrakechprivate.com, through three GEO components rolled out over roughly 30 days:
- A dedicated entity page (
/restaurants/liva) with Schema.orgRestaurantmarkup: address, hours, price range (130–250 MAD) - An experiential, first-person article, "I Tested Liva for 30 Days", published May 22, 2026
- Inclusion in an already-authoritative content cluster on the niche
The Result
Within about 30 days, Google AI Mode began describing and recommending Liva in its answers, citing marrakechprivate.com as its source. That source page was itself ranking #1 organically on Google for the target query.
The Lesson
AI engines cite the corpus they judge trustworthy, not the brand's own domain. An entity can become AI-visible by being inserted, structured, into a source AI models already read and trust, without ever building it a website.
Recommended GEO Tool Stack
Free tools first. This section used to list paid tiers ("GEO Audit Pro", citation trackers at $39–$49/month) and promise "15–30 citations/month" on a free stack: neither the tiers nor the promise could be checked, so they are gone.
| Tool | Category | Price | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|
| GEO Audit (this site) | Full audit | Free | 0-100 score across Schema.org, content and AI-bot access |
| Schema.org Generator (this site) | Schema creation | Free | JSON-LD for the main B2B types |
| Google Rich Results Test | Schema validation | Free | Pre-deploy schema testing |
| Schema Markup Validator | Schema validation | Free | Alternative to Google's test |
| Google Search Console | Search performance | Free | Queries, pages, indexing — and a generative-AI performance report since June 2026 |
| Bing Webmaster Tools | Search + AI performance | Free | Copilot citation report and grounding queries |
| AI citation tracking method | Citation monitoring | Free | Frozen question set, dated manual checks, free template |
A stack that costs nothing
- One GEO audit per month on your key pages
- Schema generated, then validated before deploy
- Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools connected, AI reports read monthly
- Manual citation tracking: 15–20 buying questions, checked in each engine's interface, with a dated screenshot
- GA4 referral filter for chatgpt.com / perplexity.ai / claude.ai
Paid tools can save time on the tracking side, but none can show you what each client sees: an engine's API and its interface agree on only 12–14.8% of answers (arXiv 2609.18729).
GEO FAQ
1. What exactly is GEO and how is it different from SEO?
Short answer: GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) optimizes your content to be cited by AI search engines like ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity. SEO optimizes for Google click-through. SEO = backlinks + keywords. GEO = Schema.org + Direct Answers + structured FAQs.
Detail: Traditional SEO focuses on PageRank signals, backlinks, keyword density, domain authority, to earn positions in Google's ranked list of blue links. GEO focuses on semantic structure and citability signals to earn mentions inside AI-generated answers. The mechanisms are different: Google ranks pages; AI engines cite facts and sources. A well-structured FAQ with FAQPage Schema can earn a ChatGPT citation even on a domain with modest backlink authority, because the AI is matching a user question to a well-structured answer, not measuring link equity. The two disciplines are complementary: strong E-E-A-T signals built for GEO directly improve Google quality scores, and high-authority domains are more aggressively crawled by AI bots.
2. How many AI citations can I realistically expect?
Short answer: There's no reliable public benchmark linking GEO score to citation volume, the number depends heavily on your sector, brand authority, and the volume of relevant queries in your market. What's established: a higher GEO score (complete Schema.org, Direct Answer, structured FAQs, bots allowed) structurally increases your odds of being cited.
Detail: Rather than quote an unverifiable number, here's the mechanism: the less ambiguous your content is for a machine (clear identity, direct answers, structured FAQs, open bot access), the easier it is to cite. Track this by manually testing your target queries in ChatGPT/Perplexity/Claude, or by filtering AI referral traffic in GA4. Request an audit to estimate your citation potential for your specific sector. Click-through on citations that do send traffic tends to be low, most of the value shows up as brand impression rather than click, since the AI answer already satisfies the user's question.
3. What return can a B2B company expect from GEO?
Short answer: there is no reliable average, and be wary of anyone who quotes one. ROI depends on your deal size, your sales cycle and the share of your buyers who ask AI engines before buying. What a GEO engagement can commit to is a dated before-and-after measurement: rankings checked by hand, AI citations on a fixed question set, AI referral traffic in GA4.
Detail: prices are not restated here — a price copied into a guide drifts. Publicly displayed market rates, each with its source, are in the GEO price observatory; the rates of my agency are published at zaouri.com/pricing. B2B is often where GEO pays best, because a prospect who arrives through an AI citation has already seen your expertise validated by a source they trust — but that is a mechanism, not a promised multiple.
4. Is Schema.org mandatory for GEO?
Short answer: Not strictly. Google's own documentation states no special markup is required to appear in its AI features. In practice, though, it's the most reliable foundation for removing ambiguity about who you are. The 9 essential B2B schema types are our recommendation for maximizing your score on our audit grid.
Detail: Schema.org (JSON-LD) is the most machine-readable format available for web content. AI models use it for three key purposes: (1) credibility verification, a complete Organization schema gives a verifiable identity; (2) answer extraction, FAQPage schema maps questions directly to answers; (3) context understanding, Service schema removes ambiguity about what you actually sell. Implementation takes 4–8 hours using a schema generator and Google Rich Results Test for validation.
5. Which AI engine should I prioritize: ChatGPT, Claude, or Perplexity?
Short answer: ChatGPT first. It's by far the most-used AI platform today. Then Perplexity, which is built around citing its sources on every answer. Then Claude (fastest-growing). Most of the technical work applies to all three simultaneously.
Detail:
- ChatGPT: the most-used AI platform. Priority signals: GPTBot allowed in robots.txt, Organization schema, Direct Answer format (50–150 words), FAQ sections.
- Perplexity: built around citing sources, every answer lists its references. Priority signals: PerplexityBot allowed, comparison tables, statistics with source links, content updated within 6 months.
- Claude: strong growth. Favors deep technical content and high E-E-A-T scores. Priority signals: ClaudeBot + anthropic-ai allowed, Person schema with credentials, technical FAQ sections.
Recommended approach: optimize for all three simultaneously (most techniques, Schema.org, Direct Answer, FAQ, robots.txt, benefit all three at once), track citations per platform separately after 60 days, and double down on whichever platform is citing you most.
6. How long before I see the first AI citations?
Short answer: no timeline can be promised — nobody controls what an AI engine answers. Technical fixes (bot access, Schema.org, llms.txt) are visible to crawlers within days; whether they turn into citations depends on your sector, your authority and the questions people actually ask.
Detail: measure instead of predicting. Fix a set of 15–20 buying questions, check them by hand in each engine's interface every month with a dated screenshot, and run an automated probe for the trend. The method is detailed on the AI citation tracking page.
7. Will GEO replace SEO?
Short answer: No, GEO complements SEO. Optimal 2025 allocation: 60% budget to SEO, 40% to GEO. Google still holds the majority of search volume (73.7% of desktop searches, SparkToro/Datos, Q4 2025), but a growing share of that volume produces no click, which is exactly why capturing AI citations matters too.
Detail: SEO and GEO measure different kinds of success:
- SEO: Organic traffic, SERP position, CTR, measured in sessions and conversions
- GEO: Citation frequency, brand mention rate, perceived authority, measured in citations, impressions, and qualified lead quality
A hybrid strategy maximizes total revenue impact across four dimensions:
- Traffic coverage: SEO captures Google's search volume; GEO captures the citations moving to AI, the two channels are complementary rather than substitutes
- Authority flywheel: GEO citations increase perceived E-E-A-T → better Google rankings → more AI crawl priority
- Cost efficiency: GEO can be cheaper per lead than SEO/SEM once the technical foundation is in place, since it doesn't depend on ad auctions
- Lead quality: prospects arriving via an AI citation tend to be better pre-informed about your expertise
Budget allocation: the smaller the company, the more the budget leans to SEO at first; the GEO share grows once the technical foundation is in place and the first citation measurements justify it.
8. What does professional GEO optimization cost?
Short answer: prices are not restated here, a price copied into a guide drifts. Publicly displayed market rates, each with its source, are in the GEO price observatory; my agency's rates are published at zaouri.com/pricing.
Detail: in-house (DIY), plan 20–40 hours a month with free tools; with an agency, a setup fee then a monthly follow-up. Either way, no volume of citations can be promised: it is measured.
9. How do I measure AI citations from my site?
Short answer: Three methods, manual tracking (free, 30 minutes/week), paid automated monitoring tools, or GA4 referral analytics (tracks clicks from AI sources, misses non-click citations).
Detail:
Method 1: Manual tracking (free)
- Build a list of 20–30 target queries your prospects use (e.g., "best CRM for a small sales team", "how to evaluate marketing attribution tools")
- Test each query in ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude 1–2 times per week
- Record: date | query | platform | cited (Y/N) | rank within the answer | exact text cited
- Track in a spreadsheet, look for trends across platforms and query types
- Time commitment: 30–45 minutes/week
Method 2: Paid monitoring tools
- Several vendors offer automated tracking through APIs. None reproduces exactly what a user sees: an engine's API and its interface agree on only 12–14.8% of answers (arXiv 2609.18729).
Method 3: Google Analytics 4 referral filtering
- Enable GA4 enhanced measurement
- Filter traffic source by:
chatgpt.com,perplexity.ai,claude.ai - Analyze sessions, users, bounce rate, conversion rate from AI sources
- Limitation: only captures visitors who actually click through, misses the impression value of citations seen but not clicked
Recommended approach: manual tracking for 10–15 strategic queries + GA4 for aggregate AI referral traffic. A paid tool can save time, without replacing a dated check in the interface. Method and free template: AI citation tracking.
10. What is llms.txt and does my site need one?
Short answer: llms.txt is a proposed convention (Jeremy Howard, 2024): a plain-text file at your root domain (yoursite.com/llms.txt) that describes your site for language models. No major AI engine has confirmed that it reads the file, and Google states that no special file is required to appear in its AI features.
Detail: it takes about 30 minutes to write and does no harm, so it is worth having as a clean summary of who you are, what you do and where your key pages live. Just don't expect citations from it: what the public data shows is summarised in llms.txt: what the data actually says.
Go further
You've got the fundamentals, time to act:
- Zaouri, End-to-end GEO agency: audit, Schema.org implementation, AI citation optimization. The right choice if you want to fully delegate.
- Free GEO Audit Tool, Baseline your GEO score in 2 minutes.
Ready to start earning AI citations?
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