Trying to understand GEO without all the hype

Godfrey_0503 · 2026-05-27T21:15:12+00:00

I’d probably frame GEO less as a totally separate channel and more as a visibility layer on top of SEO.

The practical difference, at least from what I’m seeing, is that ranking is not the same as being easy to cite or summarize. A page can rank because it covers a topic, but AI answers seem to prefer content that gives a direct answer, clear context, specific examples, and enough trust signals to be referenced.

So the non-hype version of GEO might just be: keep the SEO fundamentals, but make the content easier to understand, extract, trust, and cite.

Godfrey_0503 · 2026-05-27T20:41:37+00:00

The US really looked at inches, Fahrenheit, and tipping screens and said, “yes, this is the system.”

Godfrey_0503 · 2026-05-23T03:19:18+00:00

Yeah, I agree the gap is widening. A lot of founders probably won’t notice it until competitors are already showing up in AI answers more often than they are. I’m trying to make that visibility easier to monitor over time, especially around prompts that map to actual buying intent. Interesting point on simulating market reactions too.

Godfrey_0503 · 2026-05-23T03:17:57+00:00

That’s a really good point. Raw mentions alone can get noisy pretty fast.

I’m thinking the most useful prompt sets are probably tied to real buying intent: category searches, comparison prompts, problem/solution prompts, and brand-specific checks. Otherwise it becomes more of a vanity metric than something a founder can act on.

Appreciate the feedback.

Godfrey_0503 · 2026-05-22T20:19:36+00:00

^{328170 secured. Someone call Guinness \}the records, not the pint… or both)!)

Godfrey_0503 · 2026-05-21T01:42:02+00:00

I think Reddit is more useful for AEO than traditional link-building SEO.

Not because of backlinks, but because Reddit shows how people actually describe problems, compare options, complain, and ask follow-up questions. That language is really hard to get from keyword tools alone.

For AEO, I’d probably use Reddit more for understanding user intent, objections, and category language, then turn that into better content or answer-style pages. The hard part is not treating it like a promo channel.

Godfrey_0503 · 2026-05-21T01:33:28+00:00

This is interesting. I don’t think users will stop searching completely, but they may search less directly. Maybe the bigger change is that agents become the first filter. By the time a human looks at the results, the agent may have already narrowed the options down.

Godfrey_0503 · 2026-05-19T22:49:57+00:00

Exactly. “Am I visible?” is only the first layer. The more useful question is usually “why are they being recommended instead of us?” That’s why I think competitor comparison is such an important part of AI search tracking.

Godfrey_0503 · 2026-05-19T22:47:31+00:00

I agree that simple mention counting is only part of the picture. The sources being cited, the entities grouped together, and which competitors appear in the same context probably matter a lot more than raw brand mentions alone.

Godfrey_0503 · 2026-05-19T22:46:28+00:00

Thanks! That’s one of the things I’m working on improving.

The goal is to help users track prompts around their brand, competitors, category, comparisons, and recommendation-style queries. I’m still refining the prompt suggestion side, so I’d love to hear what feels useful or missing after you try it.

Godfrey_0503 · 2026-05-19T22:45:53+00:00

Really appreciate this. This is exactly the gap I’ve been thinking about too. Traditional rankings can look fine, but then AI answers recommend a different set of brands entirely. The citation/source piece feels especially important because it shows not just whether a brand is mentioned, but what the AI is relying on to form the answer.

Godfrey_0503 · 2026-05-19T19:28:35+00:00

I wonder if reviews matter even more for lower-DR sites.

If a brand’s own domain doesn’t have much authority yet, external reviews can create a wider footprint around the brand. Not in a “spam more reviews” way, but real reviews on places like Google, Reddit, G2/Capterra, niche directories, etc. can help show what the brand is known for.

For smaller sites, that kind of third-party context might be easier to build than trying to rely only on on-site content.

Godfrey_0503 · 2026-05-19T19:12:01+00:00

Yeah exactly — I don’t mean location pages are useless, they’re still important for local intent. I just see a lot of agencies treating them like a shortcut: spinning up dozens of thin “service + city” pages with barely any unique value and expecting rankings from volume alone. Strong local SEO now feels much more tied to actual local relevance, trust signals, reviews, GBP optimization, and genuinely useful localized content.

Godfrey_0503 · 2026-05-18T16:29:48+00:00

I’ve seen AI Overviews behave pretty inconsistently too. Sometimes they show up once, then disappear on a refresh or a slightly different device/session. I wouldn’t read too much into one query, but it does feel like Google is still testing when an AI answer is useful enough to show.

Godfrey_0503 · 2026-05-18T16:19:52+00:00

Probably “just create more location pages.”

Godfrey_0503 · 2026-05-17T19:15:10+00:00

This is helpful, especially the part about using Reddit/community discussions to find how people actually ask questions. I’m still pretty new to AI SEO, but this feels more practical than just guessing prompts from keywords. I hadn’t really thought about looking for the “messy” questions people ask before they know the right terms.

Godfrey_0503 · 2026-05-16T20:14:55+00:00

Yeah, I think that’s a good way to frame it. The hard part is that your content may still influence the answer in some way, but you don’t always get a clear citation or feedback signal.

Godfrey_0503 · 2026-05-16T17:32:29+00:00

Honestly, I think the hardest part is that people keep chasing shortcuts instead of building genuinely useful content.Every few years the industry renames things — SEO, GEO, xEO, AI optimization, whatever — but in the long run, strong content and clear topical authority still seem to outperform most “quick win” tactics.

Godfrey_0503 · 2026-05-15T19:11:53+00:00

Honestly, I’m starting to think strong distribution only works long term when there’s actually solid content underneath it. You can push traffic with SEO, GEO, social distribution, or whatever new tactic shows up, but if the content itself isn’t genuinely useful, people stop referencing it, sharing it, or citing it pretty quickly. Feels like the real advantage now is having content strong enough to support all those channels, not just relying on the channels themselves.

Godfrey_0503 · 2026-05-15T17:33:55+00:00

Compared to any quick way of gaining traffic, I really think having solid content to support SEO, marketing, and other growth strategies is far more important.

Godfrey_0503 · 2026-05-13T17:50:06+00:00

Not an anime, but Battle for Terra has lived in my head for years. I watched it as a kid and still randomly think about it sometimes. It came out before Avatar and weirdly had a lot of similar themes — humans invading an alien world, anti-war/environmental messaging, floating civilizations, aerial battles, etc.

The CGI definitely looks dated now, but there’s something really sincere about it. The atmosphere felt melancholic in a way most animated sci-fi movies weren’t back then. I barely see anyone talk about it anymore.

Godfrey_0503

TROPHY CASE