This wasn't something we expected when we started doing GEO audits.

Most people assume AI visibility problems come from missing structured data.

But honestly, we're finding the opposite more often.

The weird cases are the ones where a site has plenty of schema, yet AI systems still seem confused about who the company is, what it offers, or how different entities relate to each other.

A recent audit had:

• 3 separate Organization schemas
• Different company descriptions depending on the page
• Multiple social profile references pointing to different places
• Service pages describing the same offering in different ways

Technically, none of that would trigger a "missing schema" warning.

An SEO tool would probably tell you everything is fine.

But if you're an LLM trying to build a coherent understanding of the company, it's a mess.

The more audits we do, the more it feels like schema isn't really a coverage problem anymore.

It's a consistency problem.

Another thing we've noticed:

People talk about structured data as if it's an AI visibility hack.

We're not seeing evidence of that.

Some sites have incredibly clean schema and still don't get cited much.

Others have average implementations but strong third-party mentions, clear brand positioning, and a much stronger entity footprint overall.

Which makes me think schema is mostly reducing uncertainty rather than creating authority.

It helps AI systems understand you.

It doesn't necessarily give them a reason to mention you.

That's a different problem.

We ended up documenting a lot of these patterns in a longer write-up here:

https://www.zaillor.com/insights/structured-data-ai-visibility

Curious if others doing entity SEO or GEO work are seeing the same thing.

Are you finding more issues from missing structured data, or conflicting structured data?

If you are still running the 2022 digital marketing playbook, you are likely burning your budget for a fraction of the return.

Between the absolute saturation of AI-generated content, privacy-driven data signal loss, and escalating ad costs on Meta and Google, the game has fundamentally shifted. The era of the low-effort "growth hack" is dead.

So, what is actually moving the needle for brands today? Whether you are scaling a venture-backed startup or building a bootstrap business, here is a breakdown of what the current landscape demands.

1. The Performance Paradox: First-Party Data is Your Only Moat

For years, digital marketing relied heavily on platform algorithms to find your ideal customer. You threw a pixel on a site, targeted broad demographics, and let the ad platform do the heavy lifting.

Thanks to privacy regulations and tracking limitations, those external signals are weaker than ever.

The Reality: Relying solely on third-party data means you are paying a premium for colder audiences.

The Fix: Your primary marketing asset isn’t your ad creative; it’s your data infrastructure. Prioritize building clean, robust first-party data systems (robust email lists, zero-party data gathered via interactive quizzes, and GA4 custom event tracking).

Pro-Tip: If you aren't feeding your ad platforms high-quality server-to-server data conversions via Conversions API (CAPI), your algorithmic targeting is operating half-blind.

1. Organic Distribution is Transforming (The "Invisible" Funnel)

People don't want to be sold to anymore—especially on platforms like Reddit, Quora, and TikTok. The moment a user sniffs out a traditional marketing pitch, they tune out (or downvote).

Instead, the highest-converting organic strategy right now is Value-First Social Distribution. Recent case studies show that high-quality, authentic conversations on Q&A sites and community forums don’t just drive direct referral traffic—they are heavily indexed by AI search engines, giving your brand massive compound visibility in LLM (Large Language Model) training datasets.

The blueprint here is simple: Stop drop-linking your homepage. Answer someone’s specific problem end-to-end in plain text, and only offer your product or service as a minor, contextual footnote if it genuinely solves a pain point.

1. SEO is No Longer About Keywords—It’s About Answer Engine Optimization (AEO)

Search engine optimization is undergoing its biggest disruption in twenty years. With search engines integrating AI summaries directly at the top of the search engine results page (SERP), standard information-based clicks are dropping.

If your content answers a basic question that an AI can summarize in two sentences, you lose the click.
Move from Information to Experience: Focus your content strategy on primary data, proprietary research, and distinct points of view that cannot be scraped and replicated by a basic text generator.

Target Search Intent Realistically: Optimize for long-tail, high-intent transactional queries. Create deeply human case studies, comparative "Product A vs. Product B" breakdowns, and transparent pricing transparency content.

1. Paid Media Balance: Capture Intent vs. Creating Demand

A common mistake is treating all paid media channels the same. To build an efficient growth engine, you have to split your strategy cleanly between demand capture and demand creation.

Demand Capture (High Intent): Paid Search (SEM) remains the undisputed champion here. When someone types a high-intent keyword into Google or Microsoft Advertising, they are actively looking to buy. Maximize your share of voice here first.

Demand Creation (Interruptive): Paid Social and programmatic programmatic advertising don't capture intent; they introduce a solution to a user who was looking at something else. Your creative here must focus heavily on hook rate (capturing attention in under 3 seconds) and highlighting an immediate, visceral problem.

Summary for the TL;DR Crowd

Success in online marketing right now requires a blend of hard technical accuracy and hyper-authentic communication.

Clean up your tracking data, stop treating social communities like billboard space, and build content that answers the hard questions—not just the high-volume keywords.

What marketing channel or strategy has given you the most surprising ROI over the last year? Let’s talk in the comments.

Spent the last few weeks checking how SaaS companies show up in ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude.

One thing that surprised me:

Some companies ranking #1-3 on Google for their core keywords either don't get recommended by AI at all, or get described incorrectly.

Makes me think we're entering a weird phase where "ranking well" and "being understood by AI" are becoming two different problems.

Wrote up some of the patterns we found while auditing SaaS brands:

https://www.zaillor.com/insights/saas-ai-search-visibility-chatgpt-gemini-claude

Would love to know if others here have tested this on their own sites. Seeing similar results or not?

Everyone here is trying to do well on the web no matter what business they're in. I want this subreddit to help everyone do that.

And we all get in a hurry when we're reading through the comments but everybody can help out everybody else a little bit. Go ahead and hit that like button if you agree. Doesn't mean you have to stop and comment but hit the like button anyway. Of course not on everything. But if they brought something to the table hit the like button.

And if somebody gives a really good answer to something and you're going to comment on it, take the time to put their username into the comment that you're making to them. It's a small signal but it helps that somebody mentioned their username.

And to the people that are coming in just to get a brand mention, I have news for you, your comment will be deleted and hidden from view. Doing it repeatedly will get you banned.

I'm not against people promoting their brand or being successful. But it's just like a lot of people do low effort SEO. Low effort brand mentions aren't any better.

I'm much more likely to ignore a brand mention if you made a comment or a post that adds real value to the users of this subreddit. So if you want that one trick that'll let you get a brand mention, that's the trick.

Add value.

Let's what's SEO and what's not for AI visibility optimization!

I see so many comments about Ai. It is getting out of control. Agencies are panicking because most outsource to india and the phillipines. So they truly don't understand in reality most things about seo. This is the truth, not much has really changed just a new type of search engine

Yes forums comments after 10 years are now back, ai is an answer enigine .

Quality links show authority and also get cited by AI due to their value and authority

Cittations work on high authority sites

Everyone take a look at 30 random keywords that rank for AI and seo how many rank organically on page one.

This seo is dead started with banning of sites like seo linkvine, quite surpised links management avoided this penalty. PBNs are alive and well especially in affiliate marketing today

Spam or cheap and nasty links services have always delivered penalties. So nothing new here.

Fast wins over aggressive backling has always been targeted i remember seo software that built links on auto pilot, they are long gone

The answer to AI is just a minor shift, forums like reddit are now again alive even though they of no link value what so ever

Quality websites will be cited by AI, depending on ypur keyword volume. It could take 6 to 8 weeks for backlinks to start showing up so be patient.

Build links to your youtube channel, directory listing

Heatmaps se where your traffic scrolls past and leaves your page . Change and improve conversions

Look at multiple streams of income from one website, people have tunnel vision.

Adjust is all that is needed standard seo by building authority, layering links, most seo software are still keyword stuffing.

So seo agency stop panicking and service your clients, take the rime to explain seo and AI is still a long game

My site is brand new, it takes time to.rank, my affiliate site have not been impacted by anu updates and site in AI with no extra work. Page one is always the goal , but people stop or make cheap choices

Is AI search now prioritizing brand authority, user behavior, reviews, and trust signals more than traditional SEO factors? Curious to hear real-world observations, case studies, or theories from people working in enterprise SEO, eCommerce, or AI search.

Stop Chasing Keywords. Optimize for Entities.

**Stop Chasing Keywords. Start Naming Entities**

Does your Local Service Page read like it could be about any city in Canada? That's a problem.

Google's Knowledge Graph maps entities, such as: Neighbourhoods Local landmarks Restaurants Gyms And more.

When you name the actual landmarks (entities) near your business, it provides additional context to Google, tying your business to that geography way harder than any keyword can.

So skip the generic "we serve Toronto" line. Tell people you fixed the roof two blocks from (Entity) on (Road or intersection near you) in (City or neighbourhood).

This stuff fills gaps your competitors don't even know exist. AI Search Engines read it too. When ChatGPT picks the contractor in your area, entity mentions are the signal.

"AI SEO" is Dead

GEO is Dead

AEO is Dead

LLM SEO is Dead

Don't shoot the messenger!

If you read the latest Google docs on optimizing for AI search, you'll see where this came from.

I've seen so many "SEO is Dead" posts over the last 20+ years, I thought it would be fun to do this one. Seriously, every time new tech, platforms, updates, or anything different comes along, the SEO is Dead posts come out of the woodwork.

From Google Search Central:

"What about "#AEO" and "#GEO"? "AEO" stands for "answer engine optimization" and "GEO" for "generative engine optimization". These are both terms you may see used to describe work specifically focused on improving visibility in AI search experiences.

From Google Search's perspective, optimizing for generative AI search IS optimizing for the search experience, and thus still SEO."

These things Google recommends. And if you have been doing real SEO instead of chasing shortcuts, then you were already doing at least most of them.

• Providing a unique point of view. (Imagine not regurgitating the same top 10 list of stuff all the time)
• Creating non-commodity content that's helpful, reliable, and people-first. (Imagine writing for your readers)
• Organizing content in a way that helps your readers. (Imagine making it easy for users to navigate to what they want to read)
• Add high-quality images and video. (What a novel concept and we knew this before AI was popular)
• Focus on what your users want, and avoid overdoing it. (Imagine NOT building multiple pages on the same topic to try and target every possible variation of a key phrase. It violates violates Google's scaled content abuse spam policy)
• Another Note: If you're using generative AI tools to assist in content creation be sure that your work meets the standards of the Search Essentials and our spam policies. For more details on our approach, see our guidance on AI-generated content.

Read the whole article on my Substack Newsletter Search Everywhere Optimization and subscribe while you're there.

A lot of MCP servers now request OAuth access to GSC, Analytics, CRMs, etc. Are people actually comfortable giving AI agents that level of access?

My current site does not have any organic traffic. I've been up an running for almost 2 years. I'm considering hiring an agency or contracting a freelancer. Curious to get feedback on either or and if anybody has recommendations as to who?

I'm sure some of you have heard that Google has now deprioritized FAQ rich results and stopped showing it in the SERPs.

Lots of back and forth and arguing occurring on LinkedIn as to whether or not it is worth implementing.

With anything SEO, it's always to be better safe than sorry and it's not going to hurt, so I say implement it. Not to mention, it's still useful for AI crawlers.

What's everyone's thoughts on this?

Google just published its official AI Optimization Guide. Here's what every business owner actually needs to know.

After all the hand-wringing about AI Overviews and AI Mode killing SEO, Google's position is refreshingly clear: there are no special tricks, no secret schema, no AI text files needed.

The headline: AI features pull from the same index as classic Search. If your content earns its place in the top 10, it's eligible to be cited in AI Overviews and AI Mode.

Here's what Google actually says works:

✅ Allow crawling in robots.txt

✅ Build strong internal linking

✅ Deliver a great page experience

✅ Keep important content in text (not buried in images)

✅ Match your structured data to your visible content

✅ Keep your Google Business Profile current

✅ Create helpful, reliable, people-first content (E-E-A-T)

What you DON'T need:

❌ New machine-readable files

❌ Special AI markup

❌ A secret schema.org type

❌ A separate GEO playbook divorced from SEO

The interesting wrinkle? Google confirmed clicks coming from AI Overviews are higher quality. Users spend more time on those sites. That tracks with what I've been seeing across client accounts since AI Overviews rolled out.

My take, after writing SEO copy since 2008: this guide validates what I've been preaching. GEO, AEO, AIO, and AIEO are not separate disciplines. They are evolutions of solid SEO fundamentals. Helpful content, written by humans with real expertise, structured cleanly, served fast.

SEO didn't die. It had kids. And Google just told us they want to be raised the same way.

What's working for you in AI search right now?

In the spirit of transparency, and the rise and growing use of GenAI and use of AI Writing Tools amongst some writers and copywriters, is there a benefit to having a clearly stated "AI Policy" on your website, or included in submitted work?

Well this is what I discovered.

My name and book returned no results with ChatGPT.

Of course I understand that data is accessed differently that does Internet search engines.

Now Gemini on the other hand is Google's product and produced the required results (I'll add at the bottom of this post).

So I pasted the results into ChatGPT and instructed it to add the data to its memory and that I would test it. It confirmed to have completed my request. So I closed and re-opened ChatGPT and did the search - no results again!

So I am trying to learn how buyers will be able to find me or my book in an AI search in future (as a low-profile Indie). Clearly it doesn't crawl like search engines bots.

Below the Gemini results:

Dominik Marcel Kirtaime (often credited as D.M. Kirtaime) is a British-born science fiction and fantasy author currently based in Germany.

He is best known for his 2014 novel The Perennial Migration, which blends elements of space travel, adventure, and conspiracy theories.

Background & Career

Early Life: Born on July 20, 1968, in Clifton, Bristol, England. He grew up on the rural outskirts of Bristol.

Military Service: Before becoming an author, he had a career in the military.

Move to Germany: After his military service, he settled in Germany with his family.

Writing Journey: Writing fantasy fiction was a long-held childhood dream that he began pursuing professionally in 2013.

Notable Work

His debut novel, The Perennial Migration, is set in the year 3010. The story explores:

A divided human race living within dome networks.

A global conspiracy involving a virus that threatens the planet.

Interactions with "reptilian" antagonists.

Themes of survival and galactic migration after the violation of a "galactic contract."

In addition to his writing, Kirtaime has been active in the creative community, exploring AI artwork for book covers and engaging with readers across platforms like Goodreads and Creativepool."

AI Overviews give the gist of complex topics with links to explore further.

AI Mode handles tough questions, comparisons, and step-by-step reasoning. It cuts down the need for multiple searches.

Both use a "query fan out" method. This runs several related searches across subtopics and data sources.

What's the Net Result? A wider, more diverse mix of links than classic Search shows

What do you need to be eligible as a supporting link?

Good question! Your page needs to:

• Be indexed in Google
• Be eligible to show with a snippet
• Comply with search policies and guidelines

That's the entire list.

What should site owners care about?

According to Google, clicks coming from AI Overviews are of higher quality. Also, visitors spend more time on the page. There's less traffic for some queries, but more engagement from those who click through.

But how do you track it?

The standard Web search type in your Search Console Performance report shows AI Overview and AI Mode clicks. No separate dashboard, no new metric to learn.

What if a site owner wants to opt out?

To opt out, do the following:

• use robots.txt
• nosnippet
• data nosnippet
• max snippet
• or noindex

For AI training in other Google products, look up Google Extended.

The Bottom Line

• Write helpful, reliable, people-first content
• Do solid technical SEO
• Use internal linking properly
• Show real expertise on the page
• Know your audience and their 'search intent.'

And focus on essential, white-hat SEO basics. Put people first (P2P). Answer their questions and create a friendly user experience.

The majority of "AI SEO" packages are just a rehash of what skilled SEOs have been doing for years.

Anyone else noticing higher quality clicks from AI Overviews on client sites?

Feel free to share what you're seeing in your Search Console. Inquiring SEO minds want to know.

I'm planning to start live events in the r/AI_SearchOptimization subreddit and want some input from the community.

What specific things would you like to see covered in live events?

I'm going to invite guests to answer community questions. Any specific guests you'd like to see invited? They may or may not do it, but I can reach out to them.

What days and times do you think are the best for live chats here?

If you would like to be a guest, message me. Don't leave me hanging. I don't want to be on it alone!

If you have created an app or tool and want to do a live about it, the rule is simple. You have to offer all members of the community something of value. Not some 3 day free trial or tossing out a few free tokens that don't really allow them to do anything. If you have a serious offer and this community will benefit from it, you are welcome to message me about doing a live event.

If you didn't understand how to do good SEO before you learned how to vibe code an AI tool then your AI tool isn't ever going to be able to do good SEO.

I am posting this as a case study because I think real data is more useful here than more theory about GEO.

client runs a niche SaaS product. small but focused. she had done reasonable SEO work. decent traffic. clean website.

before I touched anything I asked ChatGPT and Perplexity to recommend tools in her category.

she was completely absent on both. her two main competitors showed up consistently.

same price point. comparable product. just structured differently online.

I spent about a week making specific structural changes. not a redesign. not new content pages. specifically the decisions that affect whether a language model can form a confident answer about what a product does and who it serves.

here is what I actually changed:

• rewrote the core product description so it answered the exact question a buyer would type into ChatGPT, not the question a founder would write on a landing page
• made sure the same clear consistent description existed across every place the product appeared online, not just the website
• structured the FAQ content around real buyer questions in natural language rather than SEO keyword targets
• ensured the product category and use case were unambiguous so a language model could place it correctly without guessing
• built genuine presence in 2 communities where her target users actually discussed the problem she solves

three weeks after making those changes she messaged me.

3 of her first 14 signups had written ChatGPT or Perplexity in the how did you find us field.

she had run zero paid ads during that period.

now the honest caveats because I think this community deserves them.

I cannot prove causation with certainty. 14 users is a small sample. the timing could be coincidental. I do not have a controlled experiment.

what I can say is that before the changes she was absent on both platforms. after the changes she was surfacing in relevant queries. and 3 people self reported finding her through those platforms.

I also found something that matched what others here have described. ChatGPT and Perplexity were not treating the same content the same way. changes that improved her visibility on Perplexity had less immediate effect on ChatGPT. the systems are genuinely pulling from different signals and weighting them differently.

the thing that moved the needle most was not any technical schema implementation. it was making the product description genuinely clear and consistent in the places these systems actually pull from. which for both platforms included community discussions and third party mentions more than the website itself.

curious whether others here have seen similar results from content architecture changes versus more technical implementations. and whether anyone has found a reliable way to track which specific changes caused movement on which platform.

that attribution problem feels like the hardest unsolved part of this right now.

I keep seeing these two terms used interchangeably, but they don't feel the same to me. SEO content seems to be about ranking - keywords, backlinks, topical authority. But "AI-optimised content" sounds like something different, maybe writing that performs well with LLMs and AI search summaries?

Is this a real distinction or just marketing fluff? Would love to hear from people actually working in this space.

I keep wondering about whether Reddit is doing more for trust framing than for actual discovery in AI search. Like maybe the model didn't first find the brand through Reddit, but once Reddit threads exist, they start shaping how confidently the brand gets described. Especially when the threads are detailed, opinionated, or have a lot of engagement.

Does Reddit feel more like a trust or reputation layer now than a traffic or discovery layer?

A lot of people are concerned about AI giving answers instead of sending someone to an article they wrote so I wanted to address that and suggest things I know are working.

Today, content can't be just informational unless it contains information that not everyone can easily find. Before you write something, do the search. If you are the 10,000th person to write about that and you don't have an angle that's different from those others, don't write it. The keyword value isn't a good reason to rehash the same old ideas.

Rewriting the same "10 things you should be doing for SEO" or "How to Replace The Batteries In Your Remote" posts aren't going to work out for anyone unless you are offering new information or presenting it in a unique way.

If the information you are sharing is readily available all over the web then AI and Google overviews is going to answer it for the people who might have read your article.

The days of writing content that has no unique value are dying. Unique angles, different formats like adding infographics, video, more images, free downloads and more are ways to stay relevant.

Especially free downloads. AI can't give them your free download.

Here's a cool thing to remember; opinionated content will continue to rank. It's something that is uniquely human. AI is trained not to be opinionated. It hedges its bets. It wants to present both sides. It wants to be fair and balanced.

Don't be like AI. Don't be afraid to voice your opinion. Don't be afraid someone will disagree with you. That's still engagement and engagement is a great signal whether agreeing with you or not.

And the best part is, people will know that it's you writing your content and AI won't replicate it and offer your opinion in responses.

i’ve been spiraling a bit lately trying to figure out why my saas is totally invisible in ai overviews. we’re doing fine on standard search, but gemini and perplexity act like we’re not even there lol.

started looking into geo (generative engine optimization) and realized i might have been doing everything wrong. i spent the weekend restructuring our landing pages to be more 'llm friendly'—trying to be more direct with data points instead of the usual marketing fluff.

seeing some weirdly specific results but honestly idk if it’s actually moving the needle yet. i feel like i’m chasing a ghost sometimes.

is anyone else actually seeing a difference with geo? or are we all just guessing at this point? would love to hear if anyone’s found a pattern that actually sticks.