What it does. 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". Part of seo skill (claude-seo: 25 sub-skills, 18 sub-agents) (AgriciDaniel/claude-seo).

Upstream	AgriciDaniel/claude-seo
Skill file	skills/seo-geo/SKILL.md
License	MIT (skill folder LICENSE.txt)
Author	Daniel Agrici
Fetched	2026-09-10

Install

• Claude Code: /plugin marketplace add AgriciDaniel/claude-seo; other agents: npx skills add AgriciDaniel/claude-seo --skill seo-geo.
• Raw file: curl -sL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/AgriciDaniel/claude-seo/HEAD/skills/seo-geo/SKILL.md

SKILL.md (verbatim)

name: seo-geo
description: >
  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
  version: "2.2.6"
  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	Third-party I/O reporting
AI Mode model	custom version of Gemini 2.5	Google
AI-referred sessions growth	527% (Jan-May 2025)	SparkToro
ChatGPT weekly active users	900 million	OpenAI
Perplexity monthly queries	500+ million	Perplexity

Critical Insight: Brand Mentions > Backlinks

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, introduced 2026-05-15 and clarified 2026-06-15, says llms.txt and other AI-text files are not needed for Google Search and do not help or hurt visibility or rankings. They may still serve non-Google systems. Never recommend llms.txt as a Google ranking or 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.

Backed by: Reddit, Yahoo, Medium, Quora, Cloudflare, Akamai, Creative Commons

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, an eligible domain or subdomain can be selected by a user, making its content more likely to appear in that user's Top Stories and eligible for a preferred badge in AI Mode or AI Overviews. This is a per-user preference, not a documented general ranking signal. Publishers may offer Google's interactive button or a deeplink, but should not promise a site-wide ranking lift. Source: developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/preferred-sources
• "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.

---

Output

Generate GEO-ANALYSIS.md with:

1. GEO Readiness Score: XX/100
2. Platform breakdown (Google AIO, ChatGPT, Perplexity scores)
3. AI Crawler Access Status (which crawlers allowed/blocked)
4. llms.txt Status (present, missing, recommendations)
5. Brand Mention Analysis (presence on Wikipedia, Reddit, YouTube, LinkedIn)
6. Passage-Level Citability (optimal 134-167 word blocks identified)
7. Server-Side Rendering Check (JavaScript dependency analysis)
8. Top 5 Highest-Impact Changes
9. Schema Recommendations (for AI discoverability)
10. Content Reformatting Suggestions (specific passages to rewrite)

---

Quick Wins

1. Add "What is [topic]?" definition in first 60 words
2. Create 134-167 word self-contained answer blocks
3. Add question-based H2/H3 headings
4. Include specific statistics with sources
5. Add publication/update dates
6. Implement Person schema for authors
7. Allow key AI crawlers in robots.txt

Medium Effort

1. Create /llms.txt file (optional: ignored by Google Search; may help other AI crawlers)
2. Add author bio with credentials + Wikipedia/LinkedIn links
3. Ensure server-side rendering for key content
4. Build entity presence on Reddit, YouTube
5. Add comparison tables with data
6. Implement FAQ sections (structured, not schema for commercial sites)

High Impact

1. Create original research/surveys (unique citability)
2. Build Wikipedia presence for brand/key people
3. Establish YouTube channel with content mentions
4. Implement comprehensive entity linking (sameAs across platforms)
5. 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.

Other files in this skill

• LICENSE.txt
• references/google-ai-optimization-guide.md
• references/llmstxt-evidence.md

references/google-ai-optimization-guide.md (verbatim)

Google AI Optimization Guide — primary-source synthesis (June 2026)

Google published a dedicated AI optimization guide under Search Central docs (under the new "Generative AI fundamentals" section; announced via the Search Central blog 2026-05-15, doc last updated 2026-06-29). Its position is the most-cited primary source for how AI Overviews and AI Mode interact with Search ranking. Every claude-seo audit that touches GEO should treat this doc as the canonical reference and reject community claims that contradict it.

Primary source: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/ai-optimization-guide (announcing blog: https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2026/05/a-new-resource-for-optimizing)

Companion doc — third-party SEO tools (2026-06-05): Google published "Using third-party SEO tools, services, and advice." No tool guarantees rankings; third-party tools have no access to Google's internal ranking data; Google does not endorse vendors; evaluate AEO/GEO claims against official guidance; Search Console is the authoritative first-party source. claude-seo's scores are heuristics, not Google-internal signals — state this honestly in reports. Source: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/third-party-seo

TL;DR

"Optimizing for generative AI search is still SEO from Google's perspective. AEO and GEO are rebranded labels for the same work." — Google, AI optimization guide

AI Overviews and AI Mode are grounded in the same ranking and quality systems as classic Search. Two AI techniques layer on top:

1. RAG / grounding — retrieves indexed pages, generates a response with clickable source links.
2. Query fan-out — issues multiple related sub-queries and pulls in additional results before answering.

Eligibility floor: a page must be indexed and eligible to be shown with a snippet in Google Search to appear in any AI feature. There is no separate "AI index". Everything that follows is SEO fundamentals applied through this lens.

The myth-busting section (most important)

Google explicitly says you do NOT need to:

Claim Google rejects	Source
Create llms.txt or AI-specific markup files	AI optimization guide §"Myths"
"Chunk" your content into small pieces for AI	Same
Rewrite content for AI with specific phrasings or long-tail keyword variations	Same
Chase inauthentic mentions across blogs / forums / videos	Same
Over-invest in structured data specifically for AI features	Same

What does matter, per Google: unique, non-commodity, first-hand content. Their example contrasts "7 Tips for First-Time Homebuyers" (commodity) with "Why We Waived the Inspection & Saved Money: A Look Inside the Sewer Line" (lived experience).

Cross-reference: the llms.txt myth is independently confirmed by [[llmstxt-evidence]] (Mueller, Illyes, SE Ranking 300k-domain study, OtterlyAI server-log audit). Both files must stay aligned.

The "creating helpful content" companion guide

The AI optimization guide links to Google's E-E-A-T guidance:

Primary source: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/creating-helpful-content

Key actionable test — Who / How / Why:

• Who created it — bylines expected where readers expect them; author background pages required for YMYL.
• How it was created — especially for AI-assisted content; disclose process where readers would reasonably ask.
• Why it exists — "to help people," not "to attract search clicks."

YMYL ("Your Money or Your Life") topics get extra weight: health, finance, safety. Sept 2025 QRG expanded YMYL to include political / social topics.

Google's listed warning signs to self-audit against:

• Writing to a target word count (there isn't one)
• Entering niches with no expertise just for traffic
• Faking publication-date freshness
• Mass content churn for "freshness" signals

AI content policy

Primary source: https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2023/02/google-search-and-ai-content (plus the Search Essentials spam policies)

Generative AI content is fine if it meets Search Essentials. It crosses into spam when used to scale low-value pages (QRG §4.6.5 scaled content abuse, §4.6.6 low-effort main content).

Two operational requirements with concrete enforcement surfaces:

1. Merchant Center — AI-generated product images: must carry IPTC DigitalSourceType: TrainedAlgorithmicMedia metadata. See skills/seo-images/SKILL.md for the audit + injection pattern.
2. AI-generated product titles and descriptions: must be separately specified and labeled as AI-generated in the merchant feed.

Forward-looking: agent-friendly pages and WebMCP

The AI optimization guide pivots near the end to AI agents — not just summarizers. Agents interact with sites through three channels: screenshots plus a vision model, raw HTML/DOM, and the browser accessibility tree.

Full audit criteria: skills/seo-technical/references/agent-friendly-pages.md.

The guide also covers WebMCP (proposed standard for direct site to agent interaction. Chrome 149 origin-trial and 2026-06-09 sign-up claims are unresolved, with three shipped Lighthouse audits) and UCP (Universal Commerce Protocol, open standard co-developed with Shopify, Etsy, Wayfair, Target, Walmart; Google-confirmed reference implementation in AI Mode in Search; ucp.dev lists 2026-04-08 as the latest date-based release, non-Google and hedged). UCP audit criteria: skills/seo-ecommerce/references/ucp-universal-commerce-protocol.md.

How claude-seo treats this guide

1. seo-geo audits cite this URL as the authoritative source whenever the user asks about AEO/GEO frameworks.
2. The myth-busting list above gates community-sourced AI-SEO recommendations — if a recommendation contradicts Google's stated position, flag it.
3. Where a third-party claim and Google contradict, claude-seo defers to Google and notes the contradiction explicitly.
4. seo-ecommerce and seo-images enforce the two operational requirements above for sites using AI to generate product content.

Last verified

2026-06-21. Re-check the source doc each quarter. Update this file whenever:

• Google publishes new myth-busting / clarification.
• Any of the linked policy docs revise eligibility or enforcement language.
• The UCP / WebMCP standards advance (UCP has ucp.dev-listed date-based spec 2026-04-08, non-Google and hedged; WebMCP Chrome 149 origin-trial status is unresolved).

references/llmstxt-evidence.md (verbatim)

/llms.txt — evidence-based reframe (June 2026)

TL;DR

/llms.txt is not currently consumed by any major AI search system, and Google now states in its own docs that Google Search ignores it. Generate one anyway as low-cost optionality for non-Google AI services, but never present it as a Google ranking or citation lever in any claude-seo report.

Primary-source evidence

Source	Date	What they said
Google AI optimization guide (docs)	2026-06-29	You don't need llms.txt/AI-text files for Google Search (incl. generative AI features); doing so "won't harm (nor help) your visibility or rankings in Google Search, as Google Search ignores them."
John Mueller (Google)	2026	Called the llms.txt discovery/differentiation use case "a dead end."
John Mueller (Google) — Reddit + Bluesky	2025	"No AI system currently uses llms.txt." Compared the file to deprecated meta keywords.
Gary Illyes (Google) — Search Central Live	July 2025	Google has no plans to support llms.txt.
SE Ranking — 300k-domain study	November 2025	Among the 50 most AI-cited domains, only one had an /llms.txt.
OtterlyAI — server-log audit	2025	0.1% of AI-bot traffic targets /llms.txt (84 of 62,100 requests).
Anthropic, Stripe, Cloudflare, NVIDIA — published files	2024–2025	All publish llms.txt. None have stated their crawlers consume third-party llms.txt files.

Where it does matter

llms.txt is increasingly consumed by AI coding agents (Cursor, Continue, Cline, Claude Code) when loading per-library documentation. Mintlify auto-generates /llms.txt and /llms-full.txt for thousands of developer-docs sites. For a developer-tooling site, publishing llms.txt is a net win — it helps agents quote the docs accurately.

For a non-developer business site, the value is purely defensive: zero cost, possible future-optionality if a major AI provider eventually adopts it.

How claude-seo treats llms.txt

• seo-geo audits report presence of /llms.txt and /llms-full.txt.
• The audit notes whether the file is well-formed (Mintlify-style markdown).
• The audit explicitly does not assign citation-ranking weight to it.
• If the user asks to generate one, claude-seo produces a minimal valid example and a banner stating "Google Search ignores llms.txt (Google docs, 2026-06-29); no major LLM provider has confirmed consumption; ship for non-Google optionality, not for citation".

When this guidance changes

Update this file (and the seo-geo audit copy) when:

• Any major AI search system (Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT Search, Perplexity, Bing Copilot) publishes documentation confirming llms.txt consumption.
• OtterlyAI or SE Ranking publish a follow-up study showing a measurable inflection in /llms.txt request rate.
• John Mueller / Gary Illyes / equivalent retract their 2025 statements.

Last verified: 2026-06-21.

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