How SEO & GEO Work Together - Do Great GEO Without Destroying Your SEO
Explore how GEO and SEO intersect in the evolving AI search landscape, addressing challenges, tactics, and strategies to optimize content without sacrificing organic traffic or search rankings.
EVOLVING SEO
SEO alwaysevolves;
the tactics to influence AI
search are re - packaged,
foundational SEO best
practices
14.
Found this charton social media...
…but isn’t all of this just SEO?
15.
GEO IS THEFUTURE OF SEARCH
AI has dramatically changed search;
new search behavior requires new
skills, tactics, tools and approaches.
SEO is not enough.
THE GEO SPLIT
Hype-drivencategory-
building, recycled SEO tactics
under new labels, and
professional anxiety driving
adoption & speculation faster
than evidence
AI has transformed
search; legitimate new
research and testing about
what is really changing &
new approaches needed
18.
Dan Petrovich BritneyMuller Joost de Valk
Andrea Volpini Olivier de Segonzac
Dan Hinckley Metehan Yeşilyurt
Jori Ford Suganthan Mohanadasan
Jan Willem-Bobbink
AI SEARCH RESEARCHERS I RECOMMEND
EXCESSIVE “SELF-PROMOTIONAL LISTICLES”
Googleis changing how it handles these
queries.
Self - promotional listicles may rank and be
cited, but they often count as a vote for
your competitor – not your brand .
34.
LISTICLES: A LOOPHOLEGAINING ATTENTION
When a Google loophole earns significant media coverage, it often results in big
changes down the line…
35.
SCALING CONTENT WITHAI
• Private dashboard of 220+ public
case studies from 15 AI
companies
• 54% lost 30% or more of peak
organic traffic; 39% lost 50% or
more
AI Content Companies
36.
SCALING CONTENT WITHAI
• These case studies are still live on AI content tool websites
• Celebrated wins after 2-3 months of traffic growth
• Rapidly scaled content, used “human in the loop” and “proprietary data”
MANUAL ACTION ONGOOGLE:
IMPACT ON GEO
This site received a manual action across its
blog on May 17
39.
EXCESSIVE ‘COMMODITY CONTENT’
Publishingexcessive commodity content for search
(who/what/when/where/why/top/best) when that
content can easily be answered by LLMs
This also violates Google’s
Schema policies
MODERATION IS KEY!
CARLHALL,
NYC FITNESS LEGEND
You can have one slice of pizza,
but not the whole pie.
You can have one can of beer,
but not the whole 6 pack.
You can have one cookie,
but not the whole box.
LLMS.TXT – NOTA SILVER BULLET FOR
AI SEARCH, GOOD FOR AGENTS
53.
OKF: GOOGLE INTRODUCES“ OPEN
KNOWLEDGE FORMAT”
Vendor-neutral open specification that represents organizational knowledge as a directory of markdown files]
Formalizes the “LLM wiki” pattern (Claude.md, Obsidian vaults, etc.)
• Combine datafrom multiple SEO , AI
& social tools in an “AI brain”
• Connect AI to
GSC/GA /Ahrefs /Screaming
Frog/ DataforSEO /LLM data via MCP
• Bring in customer sales call data
![OKF: GOOGLE INTRODUCES “ OPEN
KNOWLEDGE FORMAT”
Vendor-neutral open specification that represents organizational knowledge as a directory of markdown files]
Formalizes the “LLM wiki” pattern (Claude.md, Obsidian vaults, etc.)](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/lilyray-summer2026conferencetalks-260629140611-7f4e5f39/85/How-SEO-GEO-Work-Together-Do-Great-GEO-Without-Destroying-Your-SEO-53-320.jpg)
