GEO · Generative Engine Optimization · Netlinks
GEO: the SEO that puts your brand inside the answer.
When ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude or Perplexity answer your buyer's question, somebody gets cited as the source. GEO is the work of making that somebody you, and of showing in the App when it starts happening.
We work in English, Portuguese and Spanish. Headquarters in Belo Horizonte, Brazil.
01Overview
GEO: SEO for AI
GEO (Generative Engine Optimization), also called SEO for AI, is the work of making your company findable, understandable and quotable by the language models that now answer a large share of buying questions: ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, Copilot, Meta AI, Grok, and the generated answers inside Google itself.
The underlying logic is the same as SEO, which is why the two run together at Netlinks: whoever answers best, with the most authority and the most verifiable information, is who shows up. What changes is the surface. Instead of ten blue links there is a paragraph with three or four cited sources, and a brand that is not in it disappears from consideration before it is ever compared.
This page describes the service: what we do, with which tools, what you receive and how you track it. If you want the concept first, the full guide is in what is GEO. If you want the whole search operation with GEO inside it, see SEO agency.
- dozens
- of AI models monitored in the App
- 200+
- companies served since 2017
- 3
- languages we execute in: English, Portuguese, Spanish
- 24h
- of monitoring and live reporting
02Definition
What GEO is, in practice
GEO is the discipline that prepares your brand, your content and your site to be used as a source by generative AI systems. In practice it answers three concrete questions:
- Does the model know your company exists? That depends on consistent mentions across the web, a stable entity profile (same name, same address, same description everywhere) and presence in the sources those systems consult.
- Does it understand what you do, for whom and where? This is where specific content, unambiguous structured data and a public knowledge base answering your funnel's questions come in.
- Does it trust you enough to cite you? Trust comes from authority: who else talks about you, in which outlets, how consistently, and for how long.
There is an important behavioral split between models. Some answer from what they learned in training, which favors brands with history and broad presence. Others search the web while answering, which lets new, well structured content break in fast. GEO covers both at once, because your buyer uses both.
One point that tends to surprise leadership: an AI answer has no page two. Either your brand is in the paragraph, or it is not in the conversation.
03Mechanics
How AI models choose the sources they cite
No model publishes its ranking rules, but the pattern observed across thousands of monitored answers repeats itself. These are the six factors we work on, from the cheapest to fix to the slowest to build.
A direct, quotable answer
Paragraphs that answer the whole question in a few lines, with a definition, a number and context. Text that circles for 400 words before answering never becomes a citation.
Verifiable specificity
Data with a source, a date and a scope. Models avoid citing vague claims because they cannot back them up when the user asks where it came from.
A consistent entity
Name, address, phone, description and service areas identical on the site, on Google Business Profile, on LinkedIn and in press mentions.
Structured data
Markup that removes ambiguity about what is a product, a service, a company, an author, a price and an answer. Detailed in structured data.
Authority and mentions
Links and citations in outlets with real audiences, built by our authority practice. It is what separates a known brand from one the model ignores.
Technical access
A fast, server-rendered site with no accidental blocking of AI crawlers and no essential content hidden behind JavaScript.
04Comparison
SEO for AI and SEO for Google: what changes
The two share a base and diverge at the surface. This is the table we use to explain the difference in a leadership meeting.
| Classic SEO | GEO (SEO for AI) | |
|---|---|---|
| What is contested | A position in a list of results | A citation inside a written answer |
| Unit of measurement | Average position, clicks and impressions | Question, model, cited source and the competitor beside you |
| Winning format | A complete page about the topic | A self-contained passage that answers the whole question |
| Weight of structured data | High: rich results and page understanding | Very high: it is what removes ambiguity for the model |
| Weight of authority | High, it holds competitive terms | High, it decides who the model trusts enough to cite |
| Speed of reaction | Weeks to months, depending on competition | Days in models that search live, months in those relying on training |
| Where you track it | Search Console, GA4 and the Netlinks App | Monitoring across dozens of models, inside the Netlinks App |
05Technical base
Structured data and a knowledge base
A language model handles text well and handles a declared fact even better. When your page states, in markup, that this is a service delivered in a given city, by a company with a given address, within a given coverage area, the model has nothing to infer. Inference is where it gets things wrong, and where your brand gets left out.
So the base of every GEO project at Netlinks is semantic markup across the whole site, validated in staging with the Rich Results Test and the schema.org validator before release, then monitored against breakage from a theme update, a plugin or a deploy.
On top of that we build the knowledge base: the set of pages that answers, in an organized way, the questions your buyer asks. Service pages, product pages, guides, a glossary and an FAQ with FAQPage markup, tied together by internal links so the model understands the whole and not just an isolated page.
- Organization, Service, Product, Article, FAQ, Breadcrumb, LocalBusiness and Person markup
- A consistent entity profile across site, Google Business Profile, LinkedIn and press
- A knowledge base in silos, with marked-up FAQs and internal links by topic
- Content written to answer the question before it sells the solution
06Measurement
Citation monitoring across dozens of AI models
GEO without measurement is opinion. At the start of a project we assemble a set of real questions from your funnel, from the top ("how do I solve this problem") to the bottom ("best company for this in this city"), and run those questions across dozens of models on a recurring schedule.
For every question and every model, the Netlinks App records whether your brand was cited, where in the text, with which link, which competitors appeared alongside, and what changed since the last run. That history is what shows the effect of a new page, a published story or a schema fix.
The tracking has its own page in AI monitoring, and the rest of our stack is in technology.
07Access
AI crawlers and what your site is telling them
A quiet part of the problem lives in robots.txt and in server configuration. Plenty of sites block, without knowing it, exactly the agents that could cite them, because somebody copied a block list from a forum or a security plugin treated the agent as a threat.
During the diagnosis we check how your site responds to every relevant agent, and we set the policy with you, decision by decision. Blocking everything protects the content and costs presence; allowing everything buys reach and gives up control. It is a business choice, and it should be a conscious one.
- Live search agents, which query the web while answering. Blocking those means giving up appearing in sourced answers.
- Training agents, which collect content for future models. Content rights and brand strategy weigh here.
- Firewall and CDN. Aggressive protection rules drop legitimate agents without logging anything visible in your site dashboard.
- Rendering. Content that only appears after heavy JavaScript often arrives empty to several agents. Server rendering fixes it, and that is technical SEO work.
We also verify that the pages you want cited are actually reachable: no noindex, no canonical pointing elsewhere, no login wall and a fast response.
08Cadence
Month 1, month 2, month 3 of a GEO project
GEO has one practical advantage over classic SEO: part of the effect shows up quickly, because models that search live react to new content within days.
- Month 1
Baseline and access
The funnel question set is defined with your team, the first monitoring run goes out across dozens of models, and we audit the entity, review robots and blocking rules, and fix what prevents citation today.
- Month 2
Semantics and citable content
Structured data markup across the whole site, rewrites of pages that already have authority so they answer directly, and the first new pages of the knowledge base.
- Month 3
Authority and coverage
Mentions and links in outlets the models consult, an expanded knowledge base, and a comparison of the second monitoring run against the month one baseline.
- Month 4 onward
The monthly cycle
New questions enter monitoring as the funnel changes, content is refreshed, and every citation movement is tied back to what shipped that month.
- Quarterly
Executive read
Which questions the brand gained ground on, which competitors showed up, what changed in the models, and what enters the next 90 days.
- Always on
Alerts and open channel
A citation drop, broken schema or lost access becomes an alert in the App and a message in the WhatsApp group with the team and with Alfred.
09Channels
Where the question gets asked today
AI models do not invent the world, they read what exists. So GEO does not end at your website. A meaningful share of the answers about products and vendors is assembled from forums, communities, reviews and video, and your absence from those places shows up in the answer.
The work follows where the question is asked: Google and Bing, the AI assistants, YouTube (which serves learning intent), Reddit and niche forums, the review sites of your sector, and the press outlets Atômico Press works with. That is the logic of the Response Marketing Method.
For a local business, add Google Business Profile and consistent contact data, which models lean on to answer questions with a geographic filter. The design is in local SEO.
10The deliverable
What you receive
Finished work, approved by you in the App and shipped. Not a report that only describes the problem.
AI presence diagnosis
A baseline with your funnel questions run across dozens of models, showing where you appear, where you do not, and who appears instead of you.
Entity audit
How the web describes your company today, where the information diverges, and what has to be corrected so the model is sure who you are.
A marked-up, validated site
Structured data across the whole site, tested before release and monitored against breakage on every update.
A published knowledge base
Pages, guides and FAQs that answer funnel questions directly and quotably, connected by internal links per topic.
Authority earned
Mentions and links in real outlets, with an angle built by Atômico Press, which is what gives the model confidence to cite you.
Continuous monitoring in the App
Citations by question and by model, with history, competitors and a drop alert, 24 hours a day.
11How it works
From the audit to the page going live
The same path on every project, with an owner and a date on each step.
- 01
Diagnostic conversation
Understand what your buyer asks before purchasing, which sector you compete in and what your brand has already published. No commitment.
- 02
Baseline
An initial question run across dozens of models, an entity audit and a read of the site's technical access.
- 03
Citation plan
Which questions to attack first, with which page, which markup and which authority. Every item with a date and an owner.
- 04
Execution
Markup, content, access fixes and authority go into production with senior review.
- 05
Approval in the App
You approve each deliverable before it goes live and follow the whole queue.
- 06
New run and adjustment
Monitoring runs again, the gain is compared against the baseline, and next month's plan is rewritten with the data.
12Who leads
Who leads your project
The three of them own the process and manage the team on every account. No senior who shows up at kickoff and disappears: they sign off on the plan, review the work and talk to your team.
Digo Garcia
Founder and CAIO
Over 20 years in digital. Built and scaled Letras.mus.br, then worked at Méliuz and in the joint venture with Globo.com. Owns AI, technical SEO and engineering inside every project.
Letras.mus.br · Méliuz · Globo.com
André Mousinho
Chief SEO Officer
Comes from Rock Content, Tray/Locaweb and LWSA. Designs the keyword mapping, the content architecture and the GEO strategy that turns a brand into the answer.
Rock Content · Tray/Locaweb · LWSA
Gabriel Raposo
Chief Authority Officer
Comes from Ambev and Agibank. Owns link building, digital PR and the authority that holds up both rankings and citations inside AI answers.
Ambev · Agibank
And the team behind them: Nathália Barcala (cofounder and COO, governance), Roberto Murta (CTO), Marcelo Ligere (senior advisor, 30+ years, formerly Grupo Globo) and Alfred, the artificial intelligence that runs the day to day: delivery queue, reporting and 24/7 support on WhatsApp.
13Who it is for
Where this work pays off the most
A brand that ranks but is never cited
Organic traffic exists, yet the brand vanishes from AI answers. Work starts with entity, markup and answer format.
A new or technical category
A product that needs explaining. That is where generated answers replace long research, and where being the cited source is worth more than the ranking.
A multi-language operation
The answer changes by language and by country. We execute in English, Portuguese and Spanish, with separate monitoring per market.
14Case studies
Results with a name, a number and a date
Real projects, with what was done and what changed. No generic charts and no promises of a position.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
What is GEO?
GEO stands for Generative Engine Optimization: the work of optimizing your company's presence, content and data so that generative AI systems understand, trust and cite your brand when answering questions. It is SEO for AI, and it uses the same technical and authority foundation as classic SEO. The full guide is in what is GEO.
Does GEO replace SEO?
It does not. Traditional search remains the largest channel of commercial intent, and much of what makes Google choose your page is what makes an AI model cite your brand. At Netlinks both run inside the same contract and the same report, as part of the SEO agency engagement.
How do you measure results in SEO for AI?
With a set of real questions from your funnel, run on a recurring schedule across dozens of models. For each question we record whether the brand was cited, with which link, where in the text, and which competitors appeared. The history lives in the Netlinks App, available 24 hours a day.
How long until the brand starts getting cited?
In models that search the web while answering, a well marked-up new page can break in within days or a few weeks. In models answering from training data, the effect depends on accumulated presence and is measured in months. The diagnosis separates the two and says where the fast gain is.
Does structured data matter to AI models?
It does, and it is one of the places where we see the clearest difference in practice. Markup removes ambiguity about what the page claims, and a model that does not have to infer makes fewer mistakes and cites more. The full practice is in structured data.
Should I allow AI crawlers in my robots.txt?
That is a business decision, and it deserves to be made with information. Blocking live search agents means giving up appearing in sourced answers. Blocking training agents is a choice about how your content is used. In the diagnosis we show what your site currently answers to each agent and recommend a policy, with the decision staying yours.
Does GEO work for a small company?
It does, and sometimes it pays off faster than for a large one, because competition for citations on local or niche questions is still low. The path usually starts with a consistent Google Business Profile, LocalBusiness markup and specific content. See local SEO.
Is GEO sold separately from SEO?
No. It sits in the same contract, the same monthly plan and the same report, because the deliverables overlap: the same markup, the same content and the same authority serve both. If you want only the decision layer, the format is in SEO consulting.
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