Over the past few days, Google published official documentation explaining how to optimise visibility in generative search engines like AI Overviews and AI Mode.
The main message is clear: SEO best practices remain the best practices for appearing in generative experiences. And honestly? We agree.
At Semactic, we’ve been saying this from day one: SEO and GEO are not opposites. Doing GEO without first having worked on your SEO is like building a house without foundations. Weak, poorly structured, or technically fragile content won’t magically become performant just because it targets LLMs.
The fundamentals remain essential:
But reducing GEO to “just classic SEO” would also mean missing a profound evolution in how people search and how search systems work. And that’s probably where the debate gets interesting.
In its official documentation, Google emphasises several important points:
Again: nothing shocking here. Google is essentially reminding us that there’s no magic recipe for “optimising AI”, just as there’s no magic button for doing SEO. And that’s healthy.
The ecosystem is already filling up with dubious promises:
Most of these approaches are closer to commercial storytelling than measurable technical reality. On this point, Google is right to call for caution.
Google’s documentation does, however, have its limits: it speaks primarily about the Google ecosystem. Yet today, usage is evolving rapidly:
Users no longer pass exclusively through a classic Google search. They ask questions directly to conversational assistants. And these systems don’t work exactly like a traditional search engine.
Even where SEO foundations remain important, the mechanisms of interpretation, selection, and delivery of information are changing. This is precisely why a specific line of thinking deserves to exist, whatever name you give it: GEO, AEO, AISEO, Generative Search Optimization, etc. The label matters little. What matters is recognising that usage is changing… and so are the systems.
This is probably the most important evolution — and the one that explains why the GEO debate goes far beyond a simple question of vocabulary.
For years, SEO relied on a relatively stable logic: gain visibility in Google to generate clicks to your site. But AI Overviews are gradually changing that mechanic.
More and more often, users get
…without needing to click on an organic result. Even when your content contributes to generating the answer, the traffic sent to your site can decline.
And this trend isn’t limited to Google:
In other words: the battle is no longer only about ranking. It now also covers
This is precisely why GEO thinking becomes relevant.Not because "SEO is dead." But because the mechanisms of attention distribution are evolving.
Google says there’s no need to artificially cut content into mini-blocks to “please the AI.” We fully agree with this.
But it doesn’t mean that generative models don’t segment content themselves. On the contrary. Most modern retrieval systems work via
The real implication is:
A 1,500-word block with no clear hierarchy and elaborated figures of speech may be perfectly readable for a motivated human… while being difficult for some AI systems to extract value from.
Many AI assistants don’t answer a query with a single search. They generate multiple sub-queries:
This reinforces the importance of
In classic SEO, being visible mainly means appearing in results. In generative engines, a new challenge emerges: being picked up, cited, reformulated, or used in the generation of a response.
We’re still at the beginning of understanding these mechanisms. But ignoring their existence would likely be a strategic mistake.
We also need to stay clear-eyed: Google naturally communicates what serves its own interests and its own vision of the ecosystem. Historically, SEO has already seen several examples where Google’s public statements didn’t tell the whole story.
For a long time, Google claimed that user clicks didn’t directly influence ranking… until internal documents from the US antitrust trial revealed the existence of the NavBoost algorithm. This doesn’t mean you should believe every SEO/GEO hack that circulates. But it does mean maintaining a pragmatic approach: test, measure, observe, separate real signals from noise.
That’s probably the real question. And it’s a legitimate one.
If GEO is built on SEO fundamentals, why give it a specific name?
Because usage is changing.
Because interfaces are changing.
Because systems are changing.
Because search behaviour is changing.
SEO remains the indispensable foundation, but generative engines introduce
Ignoring this evolution would mean assuming that AI Overviews, ChatGPT, or Perplexity change nothing about search. But they already change a great deal.
For us, the question has never been: “should SEO be replaced by GEO?”
The real question is: how do you protect what generates visibility today, while preparing for the usage patterns that will dominate tomorrow?
Your strategy must allow you to
…all without sacrificing the SEO fundamentals that continue to drive business.
This is exactly the approach we defend at Semactic. Not a SEO vs GEO opposition. But an integrated SEO + GEO strategy, designed for the current reality of search.
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