Optimize content for AI Overviews (formerly SGE), ChatGPT web search, Perplexity, and other AI-powered search experiences. Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) analysis including brand mention signals, AI crawler accessibility, llms.txt compliance, passage-level citability scoring, and platform-specific optimization. Use when user says "AI Overviews", "SGE", "GEO", "AI search", "LLM optimization", "Perplexity", "AI citations", "ChatGPT search", or "AI visibility".
Optimize content for AI Overviews (formerly SGE), ChatGPT web search, Perplexity, and other AI-powered search experiences. Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) analysis including brand mention signals, AI crawler accessibility, llms.txt compliance, passage-level citability scoring, and platform-specific optimization. Use when user says "AI Overviews", "SGE", "GEO", "AI search", "LLM optimization", "Perplexity", "AI citations", "ChatGPT search", or "AI visibility".
user-invocable
true
argument-hint
[url]
license
MIT
metadata.author
AgriciDaniel
metadata.version
2.2.4
metadata.category
seo
AI Search / GEO Optimization (May 2026)
Primary Source: Google's AI Optimization Guide
Google's official position, published under Search Central docs:
"Optimizing for generative AI search is still SEO from Google's
perspective. AEO and GEO are rebranded labels for the same work."
Read references/google-ai-optimization-guide.md for the full synthesis,
myth-busting list (llms.txt, chunking, AI-rephrasing, mention-farming,
all rejected by Google as ineffective), and the Who/How/Why test for
content quality.
Audits should frame GEO findings as SEO fundamentals applied to AI-search
surfaces, not as a separate optimization discipline. When community
recommendations contradict Google's primary source, defer to Google and note
the contradiction in the report.
Key Statistics
Metric
Value
Source
AI Overviews reach
2.5 billion+ monthly active users, reported from Google I/O 2026 keynote coverage; not confirmed on a Google-owned source; 200+ countries
Third-party I/O reporting
AI Overviews query coverage
~50% of queries (third-party measurement; varies by country)
Industry data
AI Mode monthly users
1B+, reported from Google I/O 2026 keynote coverage; not confirmed on a Google-owned source
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Brand mentions correlate 3x more strongly with AI visibility than backlinks.
(Ahrefs December 2025 study of 75,000 brands)
Signal
Correlation with AI Citations
YouTube mentions
~0.737 (strongest)
Reddit mentions
High
Wikipedia presence
High
LinkedIn presence
Moderate
Domain Rating (backlinks)
~0.266 (weak)
Only 11% of domains are cited by both ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews for the same query, so platform-specific optimization is essential.
GEO Analysis Criteria (Updated)
1. Citability Score (25%)
Optimal passage length: 134-167 words for AI citation. And ~44% of AI
citations come from the first 30% of a page (SE Ranking study), front-load
your most citable, self-contained answer rather than burying it below the fold.
Strong signals:
Clear, quotable sentences with specific facts/statistics
Self-contained answer blocks (can be extracted without context)
Direct answer in first 40-60 words of section
Claims attributed with specific sources
Definitions following "X is..." or "X refers to..." patterns
Unique data points not found elsewhere
Weak signals:
Vague, general statements
Opinion without evidence
Buried conclusions
No specific data points
2. Structural Readability (20%)
92% of AI Overview citations come from top-10 ranking pages, but 47% come from pages ranking below position 5, demonstrating different selection logic.
Strong signals:
Clean H1->H2->H3 heading hierarchy
Question-based headings (matches query patterns)
Short paragraphs (2-4 sentences)
Tables for comparative data
Ordered/unordered lists for step-by-step or multi-item content
FAQ sections with clear Q&A format
Weak signals:
Wall of text with no structure
Inconsistent heading hierarchy
No lists or tables
Information buried in paragraphs
3. Multi-Modal Content (15%)
Content with multi-modal elements sees 156% higher selection rates.
Check for:
Text + relevant images
Video content (embedded or linked)
Infographics and charts
Interactive elements (calculators, tools)
Structured data supporting media
4. Authority & Brand Signals (20%)
Strong signals:
Author byline with credentials
Publication date and last-updated date
Recency, content under 3 months old is ~3x more likely to be cited in AI answers; pages left stale 6+ months lose citation eligibility (SE Ranking, 1.3M-citation study). A scheduled refresh program is one of the highest-leverage GEO plays.
Citations to primary sources (studies, official docs, data)
Organization credentials and affiliations
Expert quotes with attribution
Entity presence in Wikipedia, Wikidata
Mentions on Reddit, YouTube, LinkedIn
Weak signals:
Anonymous authorship
No dates
No sources cited
No brand presence across platforms
5. Technical Accessibility (20%)
AI crawlers do NOT execute JavaScript. Server-side rendering is critical.
Check for:
Server-side rendering (SSR) vs client-only content
AI crawler access in robots.txt
llms.txt file presence and configuration
RSL 1.0 licensing terms
AI Crawler Detection
Check robots.txt for these AI crawlers:
Crawler
Owner
Purpose
Obeys robots.txt?
GPTBot
OpenAI
ChatGPT web search
yes
OAI-SearchBot
OpenAI
OpenAI search features
yes
ChatGPT-User
OpenAI
ChatGPT browsing (user-triggered)
no (user-triggered)
ClaudeBot
Anthropic
Claude web features
yes
PerplexityBot
Perplexity
Perplexity AI search
yes
CCBot
Common Crawl
Training data (often blocked)
yes
anthropic-ai
Anthropic
Claude training
yes
Bytespider
ByteDance
TikTok/Douyin AI
yes
cohere-ai
Cohere
Cohere models
yes
Google-Extended
Google
Gemini/Vertex training & grounding opt-out
yes
Google-CloudVertexBot
Google
Site-owner-requested Vertex AI Agent crawls
yes
Google-Agent
Google
Agentic browsing (Project Mariner), acts for a user
no (user-triggered)
Google-NotebookLM
Google
Fetches individual user-added source URLs
no (user-triggered)
Google Messages
Google
User-triggered fetch
no (user-triggered)
Recommendation: Allow GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot for AI search visibility. Block CCBot and training crawlers if desired.
User-triggered fetchers ignore robots.txt by design (Google-Agent, Google-NotebookLM, Google Messages, ChatGPT-User). robots.txt cannot block them, use server-side access controls. Google's canonical crawling/robots reference moved to developers.google.com/crawling (migrated 2025-11-20); IP-range files now live at /crawling/ipranges/ and googlebot.json was renamed common-crawlers.json. Emerging: Web Bot Auth (RFC 9421) lets bots authenticate via a Signature-Agent header + key directory (used by Google-Agent); reverse-DNS verification remains the fallback.
llms.txt Standard
Read references/llmstxt-evidence.md for the primary-source evidence (Mueller, Illyes, SE Ranking 300k-domain study, OtterlyAI server-log audit) on why /llms.txt is not currently a citation lever for major AI search systems. claude-seo reports presence but assigns no citation-ranking weight.
Google now states this explicitly. Google's AI optimization guide (updated 2026-06-29) says you do not need llms.txt / AI-text files for Google Search, including its generative AI features, and that doing so "won't harm (nor help) your visibility or rankings in Google Search, as Google Search ignores them." Mueller separately called the llms.txt discovery use case "a dead end." It's fine to keep for non-Google AI services; never recommend it as a Google ranking/citation lever. Source: developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/ai-optimization-guide
The emerging llms.txt standard provides AI crawlers with structured content guidance.
Location:/llms.txt (root of domain)
Format:
# Title of site
> Brief description
## Main sections
- [Page title](url): Description
- [Another page](url): Description
## Optional: Key facts
- Fact 1
- Fact 2
Check for:
Presence of /llms.txt
Structured content guidance
Key page highlights
Contact/authority information
RSL 1.0 (Really Simple Licensing)
New standard (December 2025) for machine-readable AI licensing terms.
Check for: RSL implementation and appropriate licensing terms.
Platform-Specific Optimization
Platform
Key Citation Sources
Optimization Focus
Google AI Overviews
Strongly ranking-correlated, cites pages that already rank well
Traditional SEO + passage optimization
Google AI Mode (custom version of Gemini 2.5)
Weakly ranking-correlated; broader pool (~9 domains cited/query, Ahrefs)
Distinct surface: freshness, entity authority, citable passages beyond position 5
ChatGPT
Wikipedia (47.9%), Reddit (11.3%)
Entity presence, authoritative sources
Perplexity
Reddit (46.7%), Wikipedia
Community validation, discussions
Bing Copilot
Bing index, authoritative sites
Bing SEO, IndexNow
Two Google citation engines, not one. AI Mode and AI Overviews reach the
same conclusion ~86% of the time but cite the same URLs only 13.7% of the
time (Ahrefs study, 540K query pairs). Treat them as separate surfaces: ranking
well in classic Search feeds AI Overviews, but AI Mode draws from a broader pool
where freshness and entity authority outweigh raw position. Score both.
UX is now unified, surfaces still distinct. At Google I/O 2026 (2026-05-19)
Google merged AI Overviews and AI Mode into "one seamless AI Search experience"
(question → AI Overview → follow-up in AI Mode) with a new intelligent Search
box. The experience is one flow, but the two citation engines remain
technically distinct (different models/link sets), keep scoring both.
Citation surfaces & controls in AI Search (2026)
Google added many AI citation/source surfaces across AI Overviews and AI Mode (May 2026):
Preferred Sources, users pick sites that get a "preferred" badge in AI answers; all-languages since 2026-04-30 (>345K sources selected); Google is working toward using it as a ranking signal. Quick win: encourage your audience to add the brand as a Preferred Source.
"Highly Cited" badges, earned via original primary reporting that other articles cite.
Community Perspectives, elevates Reddit/forum/firsthand content.
Inline links, desktop hover Link Previews, and prominent link carousels.
Controlling AI-feature appearance: there is no AI-specific opt-out file. Appearance in AI Overviews and AI Mode is governed by standard preview/index directives, nosnippet, data-nosnippet, max-snippet, noindex (distinct from the third-party AI-crawler robots controls above). Source: developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/ai-features
Search agents (live, not just WebMCP): Google's "Information Agents" run in the background to monitor topics, plus agentic booking/calling for select categories (rolling out to US users, summer 2026), so agent-friendly-page optimization (real interactive elements, accessibility tree, layout stability) now matters for actions, not only citations.
Content Reformatting Suggestions (specific passages to rewrite)
Quick Wins
Add "What is [topic]?" definition in first 60 words
Create 134-167 word self-contained answer blocks
Add question-based H2/H3 headings
Include specific statistics with sources
Add publication/update dates
Implement Person schema for authors
Allow key AI crawlers in robots.txt
Medium Effort
Create /llms.txt file (optional: ignored by Google Search; may help other AI crawlers)
Add author bio with credentials + Wikipedia/LinkedIn links
Ensure server-side rendering for key content
Build entity presence on Reddit, YouTube
Add comparison tables with data
Implement FAQ sections (structured, not schema for commercial sites)
High Impact
Create original research/surveys (unique citability)
Build Wikipedia presence for brand/key people
Establish YouTube channel with content mentions
Implement comprehensive entity linking (sameAs across platforms)
Develop unique tools or calculators
DataForSEO Integration (Optional)
If DataForSEO MCP tools are available, use ai_optimization_chat_gpt_scraper to check what ChatGPT web search returns for target queries (real GEO visibility check) and ai_opt_llm_ment_search with ai_opt_llm_ment_top_domains for LLM mention tracking across AI platforms.
Error Handling
Scenario
Action
URL unreachable (DNS failure, connection refused)
Report the error clearly. Do not guess site content. Suggest the user verify the URL and try again.
AI crawlers blocked by robots.txt
Report exactly which crawlers are blocked and which are allowed. Provide specific robots.txt directives to add for enabling AI search visibility.
No llms.txt found
Note the absence (optional file; Google Search ignores it) and provide a ready-to-use llms.txt template for non-Google AI crawlers.
No structured data detected
Report the gap and provide specific schema recommendations (Article, Organization, Person) for improving AI discoverability.
FLOW Framework Integration
For prompt-guided AI content optimization, use /seo flow optimize <url>, FLOW's 21 optimize-stage prompts complement GEO's citability and structure analysis with evidence-led AI prompts.
