The short answer
SEO concerns discovery and presentation in search engines. GEO concerns how website information may be found and used in generated answers. They share technical foundations: accessible pages, useful text, clear navigation and trustworthy information. Neither is a guarantee of visibility.
Google states that its search AI features use the existing search foundations. A separate “AI schema”, a fixed article length or an AI text file is not a universal requirement.
A practical comparison
| Area | SEO question | GEO question | Useful evidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Access | Can a search crawler fetch the page? | Can the relevant search or retrieval service access it? | HTTP responses, robots rules and infrastructure behaviour. |
| Discovery | Can important URLs be found? | Can an answer system locate the relevant source? | Internal links, sitemap entries and canonical URLs. |
| Meaning | Does the page satisfy a search need? | Does it communicate a clear, supportable answer? | Visible content, page identity, sources and context. |
| Outcome | Is it indexed and appearing in search? | Is it included or cited in generated answers? | Search-platform data or an explicitly recorded answer observation. |
Readiness is different from measured visibility
An audit can establish that a page returns an HTTP response, has readable text or contains a restrictive directive. It cannot establish a future search position or citation probability from those observations alone.
Check actual Google index status with Search Console. If measuring AI visibility, record the product, question, date, answer and cited URLs. One answer is an observation under those conditions, not a permanent position. Geosento’s current technical score does not claim to perform that visibility measurement.
Use tables and numbers where they make the answer clearer
A table is useful for a real comparison: plans, specifications, methods or evidence. A chart is useful when a numerical relationship needs explaining. Name the units, scope, date and source of every figure. Keep a readable text or table alternative for a chart.
Formatting alone does not prove that a claim is correct or make a page eligible for a citation. Avoid invented statistics, decorative scores and unsupported promises. Start with a website scan and interpret it using the published methodology.
Sources and review
Technical guidance is based on the sources below. Platform behaviour can change; the review date applies to this guide, not to any particular website’s index status.