Where does the term GEO come from?
The term comes from an academic paper published at the end of 2023, “GEO: Generative Engine Optimization” (Aggarwal et al., Princeton University, Georgia Tech, the Allen Institute for AI and IIT Delhi). The researchers show that some content changes, such as adding sourced statistics or quotations, can increase a source's visibility in a generative engine's answers by up to 40%.
The term has since become mainstream. France Num, the French government portal for the digital transformation of businesses, defines it as the set of practices that improve the likelihood that a piece of content is used, cited or picked up by an AI (February 2026).
What is the difference between SEO and GEO?
SEO ranks pages: the user sees ten links and chooses. GEO targets an answer: the AI reads several sources, summarises them and sometimes names a few brands. The unit of measurement is no longer the position, it is the mention.
Both disciplines share the same foundations: useful, structured, dated content written by identifiable authors. The difference lies in the weight of external sources. An AI that recommends an agency, a software product or a supplier relies heavily on what others say about it.
Why does GEO depend so much on PR?
A startup cannot be recommended by an AI on the strength of its own website alone. Generative engines cross-check sources: press articles, business directories, comparisons, customer reviews, expert profiles. The more a brand appears in credible third-party sources, the more likely it is to be named.
This is why GEO and public relations converge. Coverage in a recognised media outlet is both proof for a human reader and a source that an AI can read, cite and associate with a specific topic.
What we measure at Linker
Every day, Linker tracks 19 questions a startup founder asks AI tools to find a PR agency (using Peec AI). At the end of September 2026, Linker was named in 64.9% of the answers, the first brand in the panel, and its website was read in 72% of conversations.
Two lessons stand out. Comparison pages carry a lot of weight: in September 2026, two comparison articles accounted for 36% of the site's citations. And presence on third-party sites (directories, rankings, media) matters as much as the content published on your own site.
To go further
GEO builds on several related concepts: earned media, which feeds third-party sources, and press relations, which produce it. For a concrete case, read PR and GEO for SaaS scale-ups and LinkedIn, the new ground for GEO.
Last updated: October 2026
