I've been talking to an old friend for ten years。
He said something to me, and i listened to it for a long time:
"last year our company lost 40% of its search traffic. No downfall, no punishment, it's natural."
He said he studied for a long time and finally found out why:
Their target users have started searching with chatgpt and perplexity, without 100 degrees or google。
This is not an example。
According to semrush, the number of users using ai worldwide increased by more than 200 per cent in 2025. Google's own ai overview (ai overview) feature already occupies more and more screen space in seach。
The number of hits of regular search results continues to decline。
It's not "seo to die," but seo rules have changed。
I. What is the difference between ai and traditional searches
Let's get this straight before we get to the point。
Logic of traditional searches: user input keywords, boom, search engines return a bunch of blue links, hoo, user determine which, hoo, enter your website/content
What you have to do: get your content on the first page, best three。
The logic of the ai search: user input questions ai gives the answer directly ai quotes several sources in the answer → users may or may close down
What you're going to do: let ai quote you when you generate answers。
These two things, on the face of it, seem to be the same, actually, completely different。
Traditional seos talk about "density of keywords", "number of outer chains", "speed of page loading"..
The geo of the ai search age (generative engine optimization) addresses:
To put it simply, the traditional seo is to let the search engine find you, the geo is to make ai trust you, to quote you。
Ii. How serious is this? Give me a real example
There is a health-related blogger who previously received hundreds of thousands of searches per month from seo。
In the second half of last year, he discovered a strange phenomenon:
The search volume data has not changed much, but the actual traffic on the website is falling。
His analysis revealed that when a large number of users searched for his target keyword in google, google gave his answer directly at the top of the search result page, using ai overview — an answer that did not quote him。
The user is satisfied with the answer given by ai, not down. His content, which was first in the search, was not called in。
This traffic loss occurred without any warning。
Your seo ranking is still there, but your traffic is gone。
That's the "ai search flow interdiction" problem。
Iii. What is geo, and how
The concept of geo (generative engineering optimization of generating engines) was first proposed by the research team at princeton university in 2023。
The core idea is to make it easier for your content to be understood, trusted and quoted by the ai search engine。
The current practice-tested geo core strategy, i sum up five:
1 the content needs to be "authority" ai will give preference to sources that appear authoritative and credible when referring to content。
Specific:
2 structure needs to be clear to allow ai to access ai to understand information, and structured content is easier to extract than essays。
Specific:
3 answering questions directly. Ai search queries are mostly questionable sentences, and content can be hit directly。
Specific:
4 content needs to be deep enough ai does not quote shallow content. Your article, if you say 1,000 words, is much less likely to be quoted than 5,000 words in depth。
Specific:
5 cross-platform content distribution and the creation of a "sign network" ai will refer to the breadth of content mentioned on the internet。
Specific:
Iv. Now, why is it a good time
I don't like preaching the word, but i really think it's worth noting:
There are very few people at the geo。
The reason is simple: the concept is so new. Many seo practitioners have heard of geo but have not done so systematically. Most content creators have never heard of geo。
But the speed of the ai search is already there。
The first person can create an "authority library" in the ai search, creating a pre-emptive advantage。
The latter will find a cruel thing: the content of the a. I. Quote, the path is dependent. Once ai "recognizes" a source authority, it's hard to be squeezed away by new entrants。
As in the traditional search age, the da (domain name weight) high web site is difficult to overcome in a short time。
The authoritative signals of geo also take time to accumulate. The later it starts, the harder it gets。
For ordinary content creators, what should be done
You don't need to know much about technology. The core of geo is content strategy, not code。
Three things can be done from today:
Look at your content structure: have you used subheadings, thicker, list? Did you answer the user's core questions directly? Cross-platform distribution: release your core perspective on multiple platforms. It's not removal, it's the same view expressed differently. Get your content signals on the internet. Stick to the deep content of the vertical field: select a direction you know, keep going deep. It's easier for ai to "identify" a continuing, deep account in a certain direction as an authoritative source. End
I know a writer who works in the workplace, who learned the geo systematically last year and started to adjust the content strategy。
Six months later, he told me that his content was beginning to be quoted by chatgpt — a user who asked questions in the workplace would recommend an article he wrote。
He said, "it's better than making a seo first. Because ai is offering me advice, not the user finding me."
This is the fundamental shift in flow logic brought by geo:
From being searched to being recommended by ai。
Have you noticed this change
The comment section tells me what you're talking about. Are you thinking about the geo
Focus on [ai combaters], sharing ai cases and earning paths on a weekly basis. It takes five minutes a day to keep up with the pace of the ai era。
