Frequently asked questions

What is GEO and how is it different from SEO?

GEO stands for Generative Engine Optimization, the practice of making your business visible when people search on AI platforms like ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Google AI. Traditional SEO gets you ranked in Google's list of links. GEO gets you recommended inside AI generated answers. You can rank #1 on Google and still be completely invisible to ChatGPT, because they are separate systems read by separate crawlers. There is a longer plain English explanation on our What is GEO page.

What is an AI crawler?

An AI crawler is a program an AI company uses to read websites. OpenAI uses GPTBot and OAI-SearchBot, Anthropic uses ClaudeBot, and Perplexity uses PerplexityBot. When these crawlers can read your site, the platforms behind them can learn about your business, quote your pages, and recommend you in answers. When they are blocked, your business does not exist to those platforms.

How do I know if my website blocks AI crawlers?

There are two separate gates. Your robots.txt file states which crawlers are welcome, and well behaved AI crawlers obey it without ever loading a page. Your server or firewall can also physically reject crawler requests. Many blocks are accidental defaults from a firewall, security plugin, or CDN setting the owner never chose. In our scan of 22,324 small business websites, more than half blocked at least one AI associated crawler. Our free audit checks both gates for your site.

Will allowing AI crawlers hurt my Google rankings?

No. Google search rankings depend on Googlebot, which is a separate crawler. Allowing GPTBot, ClaudeBot, or PerplexityBot has no effect on how Googlebot reads or ranks your site. The two systems run independently.

What is llms.txt?

The AI navigation file (llms.txt) is a plain text file placed at yourdomain.com/llms.txt that summarizes what your business offers and points AI systems to your most important pages. It is an emerging standard, similar in spirit to robots.txt, except instead of setting rules it provides a readable map of your site for AI platforms. You can see ours at geoagency.nyc/llms.txt.

What's included in the free audit?

A full GEO Score across 6 weighted categories: AI citability, brand authority, content quality, technical foundations, structured data, and platform optimization. You also get a platform by platform breakdown across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI, Bing Copilot, and Gemini, plus a prioritized action plan. Delivered within 48 hours, no call required.

What does the $1,000 implementation include?

Everything required for AI systems to find, read, and cite your business: crawler access opened for 20+ AI bots, structured data markup on key pages, the AI navigation file (llms.txt) and robots.txt configuration, a dedicated AI content index with your services and key information, and sitemap submission. It is a one time project, typically completed in 1 to 2 weeks, with verification tests before handoff. Full details on the pricing page.

How long until I see results?

Access fixes are picked up quickly. AI crawlers revisit sites on their own schedules, typically within days to a few weeks of the doors opening. Showing up in answers for competitive queries builds more gradually, because it also depends on your content and how established your business looks across the web. That is why we measure with the same benchmark queries every month, so you see the trend instead of guessing.

Can you guarantee my business will show up in ChatGPT?

No, and you should be skeptical of anyone who guarantees it. AI platforms decide their own answers. What we can do is measurable: confirm every major AI crawler can read your site, give the platforms structured, quotable information about your business, and track month over month how often you appear for the queries that matter.

Do I need to rebuild my website?

Usually not. Most fixes are configuration and content: crawler permissions, structured data, the AI navigation file, and a few pages written so machines can quote them. The main exception is a site that renders entirely through JavaScript, which AI crawlers cannot execute. Those sites need a way to serve real HTML, which can often be added without a rebuild.

I already have an SEO agency. Do I still need GEO?

AI search visibility is a separate discipline from traditional SEO, and most SEO agencies are not yet optimizing for ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Google AI Overviews. We work alongside your existing setup and do not touch your SEO work. Nothing we do harms Google rankings.