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AI Search Optimization

AI search optimization: get cited by ChatGPT, Gemini and AI Overviews

AI search optimization, or GEO (Generative Engine Optimization), is the work of getting a company cited in answers from ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Overviews. It differs from traditional SEO because these systems do not show ten blue links: they pick a handful of sources and write a single answer. Fluxo Ads audits whether your brand appears in those answers today, restructures your site content into the format models can actually extract, and tracks citations month over month.

  • ChatGPT
  • Perplexity
  • Google AI Overview
  • Gemini
  • Claude
  • Copilot
  • llms.txt
  • Structured data
  • Extractable content

What is included

What you receive

  1. 01

    Citation audit

    We run the questions your customers actually ask across each assistant and record who gets cited today. You find out whether the answer names you, names a competitor, or names nobody in your category.

  2. 02

    Content restructuring

    A direct answer under every heading, tables instead of prose, marked-up FAQs, and facts spelled out in full. That is the format models extract faithfully.

  3. 03

    Complete structured data

    Schema.org for organization, service, article, FAQ and navigation. This is the layer that states unambiguously what you do, where you operate and how to reach you.

  4. 04

    llms.txt file

    A plain-text business summary and site map in the format model crawlers already consume. A sitemap says which URLs exist; llms.txt says what each one answers.

  5. 05

    Crawler accessibility

    Model crawlers do not execute JavaScript and do not scroll. We audit what is left of your site with JavaScript disabled, which is usually far less than the owner expects.

  6. 06

    Monthly citation tracking

    A report repeating the same questions every month, showing gains and losses per assistant, plus traffic arriving from AI domains in your analytics.

Process

How we run it

  1. 1

    Question mapping

    We list 30 to 50 real questions across your funnel, from informational ("what is") to decision-stage ("best company for X").

  2. 2

    Baseline

    We run every question through each assistant and record the starting state. Without that measurement there is no way to prove a gain later.

  3. 3

    Restructuring

    We rewrite and re-mark up the priority pages into extractable format, and implement schema, llms.txt and the rendering fixes.

  4. 4

    Re-measure and adjust

    We repeat the question battery monthly. What gained citations becomes the template for the next pages; what did not goes back in the queue with a new hypothesis.

Why search changed

For twenty years a search result was a list of links, and SEO meant climbing that list. AI assistants broke the format: they read several sources and return a single answer, citing only a few. If you are not cited you do not appear at all — there is no second page to fall back on.

That changes the target of the work. Ranking is no longer enough: you have to be the source the model chooses to copy. And models choose by different criteria than the classic search algorithm.

What a model can actually read from your site

Language model crawlers have two limitations that decide almost everything: they do not execute JavaScript and they do not scroll. A React site that assembles its content in the browser serves that crawler a nearly blank page. The owner sees everything working and cannot understand why they are never cited.

The format models extract best

Not all text is equally quotable. Across projects, four formats proved consistently more extractable than prose:

FormatWhy it worksWhere to apply it
Direct answer under the H12 to 3 sentences that answer the query on their own, independent of the rest of the pageEvery page, before any CTA
TableExplicit relationships between columns, no need to infer structure from proseComparisons, pricing, timelines
FAQ with schema markupQuestion and answer arrive already paired and declared as suchEnd of every service page
Facts written out in fullNo "click here to see": the data has to be in the text to be copiedPhone, timeline, coverage, price

GEO and SEO are not competitors

Much of what makes a page quotable by AI also makes it rank on Google: clarity, structure, verifiable data and authority. GEO does not replace SEO consulting — it builds on it. What changes is the priority of certain techniques: structured data and JavaScript-free rendering move from "good practice" to requirement.

In practice we run both together on most projects. When the site has to be rebuilt to support it, that work is bundled with website development.

How we measure results

A citation inside an AI answer does not show up in Google Analytics the way a Search Console position does. We measure on two fronts:

  • Direct citation: the same question battery run monthly across each assistant, recording who was cited and in what order.
  • Referral traffic: sessions arriving from chatgpt.com, perplexity.ai, gemini.google.com and copilot.microsoft.com, isolated in analytics.

The second number tends to start small and grow fast. The first is what matters strategically: being the company the assistant names when someone asks who to hire.

Frequently asked questions

How long does it take to show up in AI answers?
First gains typically appear between 30 and 90 days, depending on how much content already exists and how accessible the site is to crawlers. New pages on an already-indexed site get cited faster than an entire site built from scratch.
Can you guarantee ChatGPT will cite my company?
No, and be suspicious of anyone who guarantees it. No vendor controls what a model answers. What is controllable is your side: crawler accessibility, extractable format, correct structured data and verifiable facts. That substantially raises the probability of citation, and monthly measurement shows whether it is working.
Do I need to rebuild my entire website?
Not always. If your site already delivers content in the HTML without depending on JavaScript, most of the work is content and markup done on the existing site. If content only appears after JavaScript runs, the foundation has to change, and rebuilding usually pays off.
Does this work for a local business?
It does, and it tends to be easier: competition for citations in local queries is still low. In that case the work runs alongside Google Business Profile, because assistants pull heavily from business profile data to answer location-based questions.
What is the difference between GEO, AEO and AI SEO?
They are three names for essentially the same work. GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) is the term most used in technical literature, AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) shows up more in sales material, and "AI SEO" is the common informal label. We use GEO because it is the most precise.