What is GEO (generative engine optimisation)? A plain-English guide for Malaysian businesses

The short answer: GEO stands for generative engine optimisation. It means making your business easy for AI assistants, such as ChatGPT, Google's AI Overviews, Microsoft Copilot, Gemini and Perplexity, to find, understand and name when a customer asks them for a recommendation. SEO gets you into a list of links on Google. GEO gets you into the answer itself.

What is a generative engine?

A search engine shows a list of links and lets you choose. A generative engine writes an answer. When someone asks ChatGPT "which clinic in Ipoh does child vaccinations on Saturdays?", it does not show ten websites. It reads a few, then writes two or three sentences that name specific clinics. The same thing now happens at the top of many Google searches, where an AI Overview sums up the answer before the normal links.

That changes what matters. In a list, being fifth is still useful. In a written answer, there is usually room for two to four names. Either you are one of them or you are not.

How is GEO different from SEO?

The two overlap more than they differ. Both need a website that crawlers can read, pages that say clearly what you offer, and other websites that mention you. If you have done SEO properly, you are most of the way there. GEO adds a stronger focus on plain facts, question-and-answer content and being named on other sites.

Why does it matter for a Malaysian business?

More Malaysians now ask an AI assistant instead of, or before, searching Google, especially for recommendations: a place to eat, a tuition centre, a plumber, a clinic that takes a certain insurance. Google itself shows AI Overviews on many searches in Malaysia. And these assistants answer in Bahasa Malaysia and Chinese as well as English, so customers who never typed an English search now ask in their own words.

Most Malaysian small business websites were built to look good and to rank on Google, not to be read by an assistant. Many have the facts an assistant needs only in a picture, a PDF menu or an Instagram post, where crawlers cannot read them. That gap is an opportunity: the businesses that fix it early get named while competitors are still invisible.

What does an AI assistant need from your website?

1. Access. Your robots.txt must allow the AI crawlers, such as OAI-SearchBot for ChatGPT and Googlebot for AI Overviews. Some builders and security plugins block them without telling you.
2. Plain facts in text. Your name, what you do, where you are, hours, phone, WhatsApp and prices, written as ordinary text on your pages. Not only in images, menus as pictures, or PDFs.
3. Passages worth quoting. Short paragraphs that answer one question each. An assistant lifts a sentence or two; give it sentences that stand on their own.
4. Structured data. A block of JSON-LD code with LocalBusiness or Organization details and a FAQPage, so the facts are read without guessing.
5. A consistent identity across the web. The same name, address and phone number on your site, your Google Business Profile, directories and social profiles. Mismatches make assistants unsure which business is which.

What does GEO not involve?

There are no "AI keywords" to stuff into pages, and no secret file that gets you recommended. Hiding text, writing pages for machines rather than people, or copying competitors' content does not help and can hurt you on Google too. Blocking AI crawlers to "protect" your content is a choice, but it means AI assistants will recommend your competitors instead. Nobody can guarantee a mention in ChatGPT, so be careful with anyone who promises one.

Where should a small business start?

1. Check your robots.txt allows the main AI crawlers.
2. Rewrite your home page and main service pages so the first paragraph states what you do and where.
3. Put your address, hours, phone and WhatsApp in text on a contact page and in your footer.
4. Add a questions-and-answers section with the real questions customers ask you.
5. Add LocalBusiness and FAQPage structured data, or ask your web designer to.
6. Claim and complete your Google Business Profile, then list your business, with identical details, on the directories that show up when you search for your kind of business.

For the full list of ways to be named, read how to get your business recommended by ChatGPT in Malaysia.

How do you measure GEO?

Ask the assistants the way a customer would, once a month, and keep a note of whether you are named and which websites they cite. Ask Google the same questions and look at the AI Overview. SeenScore does the first part for you: its scan checks the five things above across your website, and its ChatGPT test asks customer-style questions, set to Malaysia, and reports whether you are named and who is named instead.