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
- Most drops concentrate on one engine, not all six.
- The trigger is usually a newly cited page, not a change on your own site.
- Drops recover fastest when the response covers the same prompts as the new page.
Method
We took every drop of 8 points or more on a brand’s visibility score between May and July 2026, filtered to those with at least 20 runs per day, and compared the cited sources before and after.
Finding one: drops are engine-specific
In the majority of cases the drop was concentrated on a single engine while the others stayed within noise. Perplexity was the most volatile, Google AI Overviews the least.
Finding two: a new page is the usual trigger
The most common pattern was a competitor page, comparison article or community thread that the engine had started citing across several of the affected prompts. Changes on the brand’s own site were the trigger far less often.
What to do with this
If your tool shows a drop but not the cause, check citations on the affected prompts first. If a new source appears across several of them, you have your answer and your next content brief.
See what AI says about your brand
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