Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) Services That Get You Named
Ask ChatGPT or Claude to recommend someone in your category and you often get three brand names and no links at all. Nothing was cited, so nothing on your own website decided it. GEO is the work of changing what the model already believes about your market.
What is generative engine optimization?
Generative engine optimization is the practice of building enough presence across the sources AI models learn from that they name your brand when asked an open question. Unlike answer engine optimization it happens mostly off your own website, and it is measured in share of voice — how often you are named at all — rather than in citations or rankings.
The uncomfortable part is that your website is barely involved. A model answering from what it already knows never reads your homepage. It repeats what other people wrote about you.
Answers arrive with no links
Ask for a shortlist and you get three names. There is nothing to click, nothing cited and no page that earned it — just what the model absorbed about your category.
The same names keep coming back
Run one prompt twenty times and the pattern is stable. That repetition is the thing to move, and it is the only honest way to measure whether anything worked.
Consensus beats copywriting
Models weight agreement across many independent sources. One brilliant page on your own domain counts for far less than twenty ordinary mentions elsewhere.
It compounds, and it lags
Nothing shifts in a fortnight. But presence built this quarter keeps paying as models retrain, which makes it the slowest and most durable work in search.
Written about. Absorbed. Recommended.
Three stages, none of which happen on your site. Knowing which one you fail at is the difference between a PR brief and a directory clean-up.
1 · Written about
Somebody independent describes what you do, in a place a crawler can reach.
2 · Absorbed
Those sources enter training data or live retrieval, and the association sticks.
3 · Recommended
The model offers your name unprompted when somebody asks for options.
Range of generative engine optimization services we deliver.
Almost none of this touches your website. That is the point, and it is what separates GEO from answer engine optimization.
Share of Voice Baseline
Your category prompts run repeatedly across all five engines, counting how often each brand is named. That count is the number every later report moves against.
Source Mapping
Working backwards from the answers to find which pages, threads and listings the engines are actually drawing your category from.
Digital PR & Placement
Earning mentions in the roundups, trade press and best-of lists that already shape those answers — pitched on substance, not on link value.
Directory & Listing Presence
Category-correct, complete and consistent records in the structured sources models lean on when they need to be sure what you are.
Review Platform Strategy
Presence and volume on the review sites your category is judged in, because consensus across platforms is what a model reads as credibility.
Community Participation
Genuine presence where your buyers ask each other for recommendations. Done honestly and disclosed — astroturfing gets detected and it poisons the well.
Entity & Knowledge Records
Wikidata, Crunchbase and knowledge-panel accuracy, so the engines are certain which company they are naming and do not confuse you with a similar one.
Share of Voice Reporting
The same prompts re-run monthly at the same sample size, reported as mention rate per engine against the opening baseline.
Six places models learn who is worth naming.
Not all six matter equally in every category. The baseline tells us which ones are deciding your answers, and the work concentrates there rather than spreading thin.
| Source | Why a model weights it | What the work looks like |
|---|---|---|
| Roundups & best-of lists | They are literally shortlists. A model asked for three names has been trained on thousands of articles shaped exactly like the answer it needs to produce. | Pitching on substance to the publications that already rank for your category question. |
| Review platforms | Independent corroboration at volume. Agreement across many reviewers reads as consensus, which is what the model is approximating. | Presence on the platforms your category is judged in, and review volume that keeps arriving. |
| Directories & marketplaces | Structured and category-scoped, so they answer "what kind of company is this" with no inference required. | Complete, accurate, category-correct records — and removing the stale ones contradicting them. |
| Communities & forums | Weighted unusually heavily by some engines, because a thread of real people recommending things is exactly the question being asked. | Genuine, disclosed participation. Never astroturf — it is detectable and the damage outlasts the gain. |
| Trade & industry press | Authority and recency. Coverage in the places your industry reads carries more weight than general press. | Commentary, data stories and expert contribution that earn a named mention. |
| Reference & knowledge bases | Entity confirmation. Wikidata and similar records are how a model checks that two mentions refer to the same company. | Accurate records, consistent naming, and sameAs links that agree with each other everywhere. |
Your website is barely involved in this.
Most of what agencies sell as GEO is on-site work relabelled. On-site work is worth doing — it is answer engine optimization and we do it — but it is not what moves a model that never visits your site.
- Rewriting your homepage. A model answering from training data will not read it, this month or next.
- Adding more schema. Genuinely valuable, and it is AEO. It helps a page get cited; it does not make a brand get named.
- Publishing more blog posts. Posts nobody else references add to the pile of things you said about yourself.
- Buying links. What counts here is being named in context, not anchor text — and the risk is unchanged.
- Stuffing your brand name everywhere. Repetition on your own domain is not corroboration. It is the opposite.
- Being in the roundups. The shortlists that already exist for your category question, written by somebody else.
- Consistent naming everywhere. One spelling, one description, one category, across every source that mentions you.
- Volume of independent mention. Twenty ordinary references beat one excellent page on your own domain.
- Showing up where buyers ask each other. Communities are read as real people recommending real things.
- Correct entity records. So every mention is understood to be the same company, and not a similarly named one.
This section costs us work and we would rather publish it than sell a retainer that cannot move the number it promises.
A number to beat, and the map of how to beat it.
GEO is easy to sell vaguely, so the first deliverable is a measurement you can hold us to.
One prompt, twenty runs, counting how often each brand is named. Repeated monthly at the same sample size.
Each run also records which sources sat behind the mention, so the gap comes with a reason rather than a guess.
Four categories, four different places the answer is decided.
The six sources do not carry equal weight everywhere. These are the live engagements and the source that dominates each one.
Glamazle — beauty and fashion in the Gulf, where brand recommendations are shaped by editorial roundups and retailer listings long before anyone visits a store.
Squegg — grip-strength therapy, a category where clinicians and patient communities decide what gets recommended and a supplier directory listing carries real weight.
Transparent Tech — recruitment in London, where "best agencies" lists and rating platforms are the entire basis of the shortlist a model produces.
Velement — signage fabrication across two markets, where trade directories, published project portfolios and architect referrals are what a model reads before it names a fabricator.
Playzo Kids — toy retail in the UAE, where parenting roundups, marketplace presence and local directories decide which store gets named for a gift question.
If engines already quote your pages, start with the cheaper half.
A brand that gets cited by Perplexity but never named by ChatGPT has a presence problem, and this is the right page. A brand nobody quotes because its answers are buried has a structure problem, and that is answer engine optimization — faster, cheaper, and done on your own site. Most engagements need both; the baseline decides the split and the order.
Send us one prompt your buyers would type.
We will run it twenty times across the engines and send back who gets named, how often, and what is putting them there.
Get the Twenty-Run CheckFive steps from unmentioned to shortlisted.
Share of voice baseline
Your category prompts run repeatedly across all five engines, counting mentions per brand. This is the number everything afterwards is measured against.
Source mapping
Working backwards from the answers to the pages, threads and listings behind them, then scoring which of the six source types is deciding your category.
Entity and record clean-up
One name, one description, one category, everywhere. Cheap, fast, and it has to happen before new mentions can compound rather than fragment.
Placement and participation
Earning mentions in the sources that scored highest — roundups, reviews, directories, trade press and communities — on substance rather than volume.
Re-run and report
Same prompts, same sample size, every month. Mention rate per engine against the baseline, with the sources that moved it named individually.
$ mdg sov --prompts 12 --runs 20
✓ 240 completions sampled
✓ Brands named, counted
✓ Source attribution mapped
✓ Entity records reconciled
✓ Mention rate tracked monthly
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How long does GEO take, and when is it a waste?
This is the slowest work we sell. Anyone promising a quick move in share of voice is either measuring something else or making it up.
Quarters, not weeks
Mentions have to be earned, indexed, and then absorbed. Expect the first measurable movement one to two quarters in, and expect it to keep compounding after that as models retrain.
Harder against entrenched brands
If two competitors have a decade of coverage in your category, you are not overtaking them this year. You are getting into the shortlist alongside them, which is usually the commercially useful outcome anyway.
Pointless if nobody asks
If buyers in your category never ask an open question — they search your brand name and buy — GEO has nothing to win. The baseline shows that before you commit, and we will tell you to spend the money on AEO or local instead.
Find out how often you get named.
Tell us your category and the prompts a buyer would type. We will run each one twenty times across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude and Grok, count who gets named, and map the sources putting them there. If your category is not being asked about yet, we will tell you that instead.
Generative engine optimization, explained plainly.
What is generative engine optimization (GEO)?
Generative engine optimization is the practice of building enough presence across the sources AI models learn from that they name your brand when asked an open question. It happens mostly off your own website, and it is measured in share of voice — how often you are named — rather than in citations or rankings.
What is the difference between GEO and AEO?
AEO is about being cited: the engine quotes your page and links it as the source, and the work happens on your own site. GEO is about being named: the engine says your brand without linking anything, and the work happens off your site in the sources it learned from. Most brands need both, rarely in equal measure.
How do you measure GEO?
By share of voice. We run a fixed set of category prompts many times across each engine and count how often every brand is named. Running each prompt repeatedly matters, because a single answer is anecdotal and the same prompt does not return the same names every time.
Is GEO just digital PR with a new name?
Digital PR is the largest part of it but not all of it. GEO also covers directory and review presence, community participation, and entity records that let an engine confirm which company is being mentioned. What makes it GEO rather than PR is the target and the measurement — placements are chosen because they shape answers, and success is a mention rate.
How long does GEO take to work?
One to two quarters before movement is measurable, and it compounds after that. Mentions have to be earned, indexed and then absorbed, and engines answering from training data lag furthest behind. Anyone promising a quick shift in share of voice is measuring something else.
Can you guarantee our brand will be mentioned?
No, and neither can anyone else. We can guarantee the measurement, the source map and the placements. Whether a model names you depends on how crowded your category is and how much coverage the incumbents already have, which is exactly why the baseline comes first.
Somebody in your category is already the default answer.
Find out who, how often, and what put them there. One prompt, twenty runs, five engines — and an honest answer about whether this is where your budget belongs.
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