GEO & AI Search
How do AI engines decide which businesses to cite?
They draw on a trust graph rather than a ranking: whether your organisation resolves as a clear entity, whether independent sources describe you consistently, whether your content is structured enough to parse confidently, and whether claims corroborate across the web. Citation is a function of corroboration, not keyword placement.
Retrieval differs by platform and should never be treated as interchangeable. Google AI Mode issues multiple related searches across subtopics concurrently — query fan-out — then synthesises. ChatGPT search rewrites your query into targeted queries sent to search partners. Gemini and Claude both decide autonomously whether to search and return inline citations. Perplexity retrieves in real time with clickable citations on every answer.
One consequence is that you compete for subtopics you never targeted directly. Another is that access matters before content does: if retrieval crawlers cannot reach you, none of the rest applies.
Informational · Updated 2026-08-10
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