GEO vs SEO: What Changes When Buyers Ask ChatGPT

The actual difference

Classic SEO optimizes for a ranked list of links. GEO optimizes for being named inside a generated answer, which rewards structured data, clearly attributable claims, and presence across the sources a model already trusts.

That last part is the practical difference. A page can rank first on Google and still never get cited by an AI Overview or a ChatGPT answer, because the model is drawing on a different mix of sources and weighting them differently than a search index does.

What carries over

Scaffold. Replace with the full section.

How to evaluate an agency

Scaffold. Replace with the full section. The GEO agency ranking covers who we have reviewed.