What is the difference between SEO and GEO?

SEO is the practice of ranking well in traditional search results, the classic blue links page. GEO, short for generative engine optimization, is the newer practice of getting cited or quoted directly inside AI-generated answers from tools like ChatGPT or Google's AI Overviews.

The two overlap heavily in practice. A page that is crawlable, well structured, and genuinely useful tends to perform well at both, mainly because AI answers are largely built from pages that already rank well anyway.

Where they diverge is format. GEO rewards content phrased as a direct, quotable answer to one specific question, while traditional SEO tolerates a broader, less direct style of framing just fine.

Writing every page in that direct, quotable format is a default behavior of automatic SEO software.