/ THE SHORT ANSWER
- 01SEO foundations remain relevant to AI-assisted discovery.
- 02There is no special schema or file that guarantees AI inclusion.
- 03Distinct evidence and point of view matter more than query-variant volume.
/ dotSuper point of view
Optimise for being the clearest defensible source on a real question. The label matters less than whether people and retrieval systems can find, interpret, verify, and use the page.
What the evidence says
Google’s newer AI optimisation guidance emphasises crawlability, non-commodity people-first content, internal discovery, textual clarity, reduced duplication, and a useful page experience rather than manufacturing pages for every query variation.
A practical decision framework
It is designed to make the decision inspectable, not to imitate a platform ranking formula, certification checklist, or legal test.
- Be eligible: crawlable, indexable, canonical, internally linked, and technically sound.
- Be understandable: direct answer, semantic headings, explicit entities, and consistent facts.
- Be defensible: first-party evidence, sources, method, dates, limits, and accountable authorship.
- Be useful: help the reader make a decision or complete a task without another search.
| Step | Decision to record |
|---|---|
| 01 | Be eligible: crawlable, indexable, canonical, internally linked, and technically sound. |
| 02 | Be understandable: direct answer, semantic headings, explicit entities, and consistent facts. |
| 03 | Be defensible: first-party evidence, sources, method, dates, limits, and accountable authorship. |
| 04 | Be useful: help the reader make a decision or complete a task without another search. |
How to put it into practice
For each, identify whether the best existing page gives a direct answer, page-specific evidence, clear definitions, relevant trade-offs, and a practical next step.
Measure search and AI-referral visibility separately from qualified business outcomes.
A citation is useful only when it reaches the right audience and supports a credible decision.
- Name the accountable owner and the decision this work must enable.
- Record the current evidence, assumptions, exclusions, and next review trigger.
- Measure a useful outcome rather than treating publication or deployment as success.
What this page cannot conclude
- 01No optimisation method guarantees indexing, ranking, citation, traffic, or inclusion in an AI answer.
- 02AI products use different retrieval systems, data partnerships, policies, and interfaces that change over time.
- 03Publication, technical eligibility, or good practice cannot guarantee ranking, referral traffic, citation, adoption, or a business outcome.
Sources
- 01Optimizing Your Website for Generative AI Features on Google SearchGoogle Search Central · accessed Aug 30, 2026
- 02AI Features and Your WebsiteGoogle Search Central · accessed Aug 30, 2026
- 03Creating Helpful, Reliable, People-First ContentGoogle Search Central · accessed Aug 30, 2026
Our editorial standard · Found an error? Send a correction with its source.
/ CITE OR SHARE THIS GUIDE
Make the evidence easy to verify.
When you reference this guide, link to its canonical URL. That gives readers one stable place for the evidence, limitations and future updates.
dotSuper Research Desk. (August 30, 2026). GEO vs SEO: What Is Actually Different, and What Still Matters. dotSuper. https://dotsuper.net/feeds/search-discovery/geo-vs-seo-what-is-actually-different