What is GEO, and how is it different from SEO?
Generative Engine Optimization is not SEO with a new name. Here is what actually changes when the result is a paragraph instead of a list of links.
Key takeaways
- Check robots.txt and your CDN's bot rules separately; they fail independently.
- Pricing and integrations pages are the ones most often blocked.
- Unblocking is usually a one-hour fix worth several visibility points.
Where the blocks come from
Three places: robots.txt disallow rules that were copied from a template, CDN bot-management defaults that treat AI crawlers as scrapers, and login walls on pages that should be public.
How to check
Run a site audit per URL and read the response code per bot. A 200 for Googlebot and a 403 for GPTBot on the same page is the signature of a CDN rule.
What to change
Allow the AI crawlers you want to be cited by, keep the ones you do not, and re-run the audit. Then watch the affected prompts for two weeks.
See what AI says about your brand
Six engines, a grade and the first three fixes. Free for 14 days.