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Adding relevant statistics, quotations and citations can boost content visibility in generative engines by up to 40%, according to a recent research paper.
That finding comes from a paper titled GEO: Generative Engine Optimization. It is authored by researchers from Princeton, Georgia Tech, The Allen Institute of AI and IIT Delhi.
What is Generative Engine Optimization (GEO). GEO is described in the paper as:
Tested techniques. Nine optimization tactics were tested across 10,000 search queries on something that “closely resembles the design of BingChat”:
The search query data set was compiled from Google, Microsoft Bing, Perplexity.AI Discover, GPT-4 and other sources.
Topic-specific optimization. The report said:
For example, adding citations increased visibility for Facts, while focusing on Authoritative optimizations improved performance in the Debate and History categories.
To be clear, when the paper discusses “domains” it’s talking more about broad categories, not an online domain name. This would also be true in SEO – specific optimizations are different in healthcare versus payday loans.
Among the “domains” mentioned in the paper:
Leveling the playing field? GEO could help smaller websites ranking lower in SERPs, according to the researchers:
Why we care. With the emergence of Google’s Search Generative Experience, Bing Copilot (formerly Bing Chat) and other AI-powered search engines, now is a crucial time to test and learn what helps content gain visibility. Because the things that work in SEO won’t necessarily work in the new world of GEO.
But. While this paper is an interesting read, these are not real world results (the researchers tested a subset of the results via Perplexity, but Perplexity is not Google). Following the paper’s framework won’t guarantee success or greater visibility in Google’s AI experience. Testing is heavily encouraged, however.
More on LLM optimization. Search Engine Land contributor Olaf Kopp recently dove into the topic of generative AI optimization in LLM optimization: Can you influence generative AI outputs?
The paper. You can download it here.
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