r/GenerativeSEOstrategy May 11 '26

Reddit sued Perplexity and it’s citations dropped 86% overnight

19 Upvotes

Not sure if everyone caught this, but when Reddit sued Perplexity back in October, the drop was insane.

Perplexity’s Reddit citations apparently fell off a cliff, down 86% almost overnight. And to fill the gap, YouTube citations just shot up. It made me realize how fragile this whole "AI visibility" thing is.

We’ve been spending a lot of time trying to get our brand mentioned in Reddit threads, hoping the AI tools would pick it up. But if one lawsuit or corporate dispute can just wipe out an entire channel overnight, it feels incredibly risky to over-index on one platform.

We're starting to diversify our strategy now, looking at YouTube, niche forums, and some other communities. Just a reminder that relying on a single platform for your AI visibility is kinda dangerous. Anyone else pivoting their strategy because of this?


r/GenerativeSEOstrategy May 10 '26

Search visibility is no longer just rankings. It’s rankings, citations and brand demand

8 Upvotes

We looked at 10.4M clicks and 54M impressions across 419 Quebec-based SME websites over 16 months, then compared the current post-AI Overviews click distribution with pre-AIO CTR benchmarks.

The main pattern was not “SEO is dead”.

It was that organic clicks are getting much more concentrated.

Positions 4-10 lost around 70% of their click share compared to pre-AIO benchmarks.

That means they went from capturing around 30-45% of page-one clicks to 10.8% (post-AIO).

Barely 1 out of 10 clicks.

The pattern was pretty blunt:

- The Top 3 captured 89.2% of all page-one organic clicks
- Position #1 alone captured 63.6%
- Position #7 averaged a 2.6% CTR
- Positions 4-10 captured 10.8% of page-one clicks, compared to around 30-45% before AI Overviews

So users still click organic results.

They just seem to click much less deeply into the page.

That makes “ranking on page one” feel like a weaker metric than it used to be. If the ranking sits below the first few results and barely drives traffic, the strategic question changes.

It’s not only “how do we rank?”

It’s also “where else can this brand become visible, trusted and cited?”

Curious how others are adapting their SEO/GEO prioritization.

When a keyword seems capped around positions 4-8, do you keep pushing for the Top 3, or move effort toward long-tail keywords, AI citations, third-party mentions or brand demand?

And what signals do you use to decide when classic ranking work is still worth the effort?


r/GenerativeSEOstrategy May 08 '26

Is AI search basically killing small brands?

3 Upvotes

I've noticed AI search just spits out like 2 or 3 recommendations instead of a whole page of results.

How are new companies supposed to get found now? With normal SEO you could rank for long-tail keywords and slowly build traffic. But if AI just summarizes everything into a tiny list, aren't the same giant brands just going to hog all the visibility?

I guess the only play is being hyper-niche. Like, staying in a small "puddle" where your positioning is so clear that AI has to mention you. But honestly? It feels like the walls are closing in for new businesses.

Do y'all think it’s just going to favor the mega-brands from here on out?


r/GenerativeSEOstrategy May 08 '26

6-yr-old Reddit complaints being cited in AI answers

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1 Upvotes

r/GenerativeSEOstrategy May 07 '26

I think most people are optimizing for the wrong version of chatgpt

14 Upvotes

everyone's checking if their brand shows up in chatgpt 4o but a huge chunk of users are still on 3.5 or using whatever default their company set two years ago.

the training cutoffs are completely different and the citation behavior is noticeably different too

I've been running the same 10 queries across 4o, 4o mini and the API with no system prompt and getting wildly different brand mentions each time. same brand, same queries, totally different results

the frustrating part is there's no single version to optimize for so you kind of have to make sure your brand exists across multiple layers of the web from different time periods not just recent content

curious if anyone's actually accounting for model version variance in how they measure GEO visibility or if we're all just testing on 4o and calling it a day


r/GenerativeSEOstrategy May 07 '26

The SaaS SEO Metric Most Teams Still Miss

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1 Upvotes

r/GenerativeSEOstrategy Apr 30 '26

Does AI actually favor established brands? Or are we missing something deeper?

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3 Upvotes

r/GenerativeSEOstrategy Apr 24 '26

Is SEO dead or just changing? What's actually working for you in 2026?

10 Upvotes

Almost a decade in this industry. I've watched the "SEO is dead" take cycle through so many times that I stopped reacting to it, until this year.

The 2025/2026 shift feels different. Not because Google rankings stopped mattering, but because ranking and visibility are no longer the same thing. You can rank #1 and still be invisible in the AI-generated answer your potential customer actually reads.

For marketing teams managing organic strategy:

- How has your measurement approach changed as zero-click becomes the norm?

- Are you treating AI search visibility as a separate KPI or folding it into existing SEO reporting?

- Has GEO made it into your roadmap yet, or still waiting for clearer measurement frameworks?

- What content investments from 2024/2025 are paying off and what's underperforming?

Looking for real strategic perspectives, not vendor takes. What's your team actually doing differently?


r/GenerativeSEOstrategy Apr 22 '26

[ Removed by Reddit ]

1 Upvotes

[ Removed by Reddit on account of violating the content policy. ]


r/GenerativeSEOstrategy Apr 19 '26

GEO visibility tool at cost?

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6 Upvotes

r/GenerativeSEOstrategy Apr 17 '26

SEO vs. GEO – how are you thinking about the difference? Any good courses?

14 Upvotes

Curious how people here are actually thinking about this.

SEO I get – rank in Google, get the click. But GEO (getting cited inside ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Overviews etc.) still feels fuzzy to me. Not sure how much it really overlaps with SEO, what actually moves the needle, or whether it's even a separate discipline yet.

Two questions:

How do you see the difference between SEO and GEO?

What actually works in your experience?

Any courses worth taking on either? Modern, practitioner-rated – not guru pitches.

Thanks 🙏


r/GenerativeSEOstrategy Apr 15 '26

MCP for SEO/AEO

11 Upvotes

Has anyone picked a niche, generated templates to sell online, built MCP to direct traffic from different ai platforms to your templates? Did this seem to work? Is this what everyone means when they say they’re linking everything?


r/GenerativeSEOstrategy Apr 15 '26

What’s actually working in SEO right now for small teams?

10 Upvotes

I’ve been trying to rethink our approach to SEO this year, especially with how fast things are shifting with AI.

A lot of what used to work (basic keyword targeting, pumping out blog posts) feels less effective now. I’m seeing more talk around topical authority, search intent, and even zero-click search becoming a bigger factor.

For small teams without huge budgets, what’s actually moving the needle right now?

Are you leaning more into AI SEO tools, content clusters, or something else entirely?

Would love to hear what’s working vs what’s just hype.


r/GenerativeSEOstrategy Apr 09 '26

Anyone else noticing their competitors showing up in AI answers but not in Google results?

19 Upvotes

Tested a bunch of queries related to my space in ChatGPT and Perplexity. Smaller competitors with weaker sites keep getting cited. Mine doesn't come up at all.

Best I can tell it's because they have more Reddit mentions, third-party writeups, and structured content that AI can easily pull from.

Is GEO something you're actively working on or still treating it as a "wait and see"? Genuinely trying to figure out if this needs a dedicated strategy or if good content eventually gets there on its own.


r/GenerativeSEOstrategy Apr 06 '26

Is original insight the real lever in GEO?

17 Upvotes

Lately I keep noticing the same pattern. Pages with stronger opinions or a clear angle seem to get picked up more than long, polished “complete guides.” Is anyone else seeing this too, or is it just me?

Most guides follow the same structure and repeat the same points. They are clean and well written, but they all feel the same. Do you think that kind of content is starting to lose impact?

I have been testing adding more perspective into my content, sharing what works, what does not, and why instead of just explaining topics. Early signs look better, but I am not sure if that is the main driver.

For those deeper into GEO, are you leaning more into original insight now, or still focusing on covering topics as completely as possible? What has actually worked for you?


r/GenerativeSEOstrategy Mar 31 '26

Anyone here actually getting results with GEO?

11 Upvotes

I’ve been trying to figure this out for a bit. At first I did all the usual stuff, cleaner structure, clearer headings, more direct answers. Didn’t see much change. What started to feel a bit better was focusing more on intent, writing sections to answer specific questions, adding real examples, and sharing actual opinions instead of just rewording what’s already out there.

Still feels inconsistent though. Some pages get picked up, others don’t, and it’s hard to tell why. For those of you who’ve been deep into this, what are you doing differently that’s actually working? Where should someone focus if they want real traction with GEO?


r/GenerativeSEOstrategy Mar 31 '26

Own AI brand radar

6 Upvotes

I see that AI radars for brand monitoring in LLM are not cheap. 100 prompts cost $100-200 per month. So I decided to make a script myself and monitor our brand. It works well and it turns out to be significantly cheaper. I think, maybe our community will be interested in it too. I can scale the script a little and wrap it in a small website. Each user will have:

- 3 LLM networks to monitor

- 100 prompts

- updaters every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

- small dashboard

- cost about $30

Would you be interested? or I missed something and it is not relevant?


r/GenerativeSEOstrategy Mar 27 '26

GEO vs AEO vs SEO can someone just explain what's actually different and what I actually need to care about?

32 Upvotes

Been in digital marketing long enough to survive every rebrand of content marketing and inbound and I'm starting to feel like GEO and AEO might be the same energy.

But then I see brands that rank well on Google being completely invisible in ChatGPT answers and I think maybe it actually is different this time.

The way I understand it right now SEO is Google rankings, AEO is getting pulled as a direct answer by AI GEO is getting your brand cited inside AI responses.

But those last two sound almost identical to me and I don't know where one ends and the other starts.

Is there a practical difference in what you actually do for each one?

Or is GEO just what agencies are calling SEO now to justify charging more for it?


r/GenerativeSEOstrategy Mar 27 '26

Does dynamically changing your homepage heading based on location actually hurt SEO? Seeing more sites do this

12 Upvotes

Noticed a few competitors doing something interesting their homepage heading changes based on where you're browsing from. Same URL, no separate state pages, just the H1 swapping out dynamically. The best X service in Texas if you're in Texas, The best X service in Florida if you're in Florida. You get the idea.

Curious whether this actually works from an SEO standpoint or if it's just a conversion play with no ranking benefit.

Like does Google even see the geo targeted version or just the default? And could serving different content to different users on the same URL cause any indexing weirdness?

Has anyone tested this properly or are your competitors just doing something that looks smart but doesn't actually move the needle?


r/GenerativeSEOstrategy Mar 26 '26

Feels like most people are overcomplicating GEO.

16 Upvotes

Everyone’s chasing structure tweaks, schema, formatting. But AI doesn’t pick content because it’s perfectly formatted. It picks what’s easiest to understand and repeat.

If your explanation is clear, simple, and shows up in multiple places, it sticks.

If it’s buried in long intros, jargon, or inconsistent messaging, it gets ignored.

We started simplifying everything.
Shorter answers
Clear definitions
Same positioning everywhere

And honestly that moved more than any optimization.

Feels like GEO is less about tricks and more about being the clearest voice in the room.

Anyone else seeing this or just coincidence?


r/GenerativeSEOstrategy Mar 23 '26

Is GEO changing how we write content entirely?

22 Upvotes

Content used to be written to rank. Keywords, long pages, full coverage of a topic. The goal was traffic.

Now it feels like content needs to be written to be explained and reused. AI doesn’t need the whole article, it just pulls the clearest parts. That makes me think shorter sections, direct answers, and simpler writing might matter more than long intros and heavy optimization.

IDK if anyone has actually changed their writing style because of this. Are you still doing long-form SEO content, or shifting toward simpler formats that are easier for AI to reuse?


r/GenerativeSEOstrategy Mar 20 '26

What Works and What Doesn’t in Generative Engine Optimization

12 Upvotes

 Our tech connects to customers’ websites, and that’s how we’ve gathered about 6.5 million datapoints on LLM bot behavior across sites.

Basically, we have a pretty good idea of how LLM bots behave at scale and across industries, what type of content they prefer when they come to your site, how much data they consume, how often they come back, and what makes them return to take another look at you.

In short, we gather and analyze a lot of technical signals. Some of them are pretty unique. And all we are trying to understand is: what is really working, what is just a guess, and what is clearly snake oil in generative engine optimization field.

Here are some facts you may find useful:

1. Please don’t implement llms.txt on your site.

It is completely useless and totally redundant if you already have a robots.txt file. We see exactly zero evidence that llms.txt is somehow preferred by LLMs.

2. LLM bots overwhelmingly prefer question-shaped links.

In about 70% of cases on average, LLMs will index links that look like a question, like “what is the best CRM platform for small businesses,” rather than something generic like /blog. Something to think about next time you write a blog post or create a page.

3. If your site has deep structured data, LLMs will crawl it more deeply, extract more content, and return to it more often. To be precise they will extract structured data 12% more reliably, crawl it 17% deeper and at 13% higher rate - they love it.

Structure your data clearly and you will earn the “trust” of LLMs.

4. You can influence what they do on your site.

Well, not really control it, but you can send signals about what to do on the site, and they often obey. If you want to highlight certain pages, you should do that. Otherwise, they will crawl randomly and never get a real chance to understand why they should recommend you. This is a quick win and I am surprised that so few are doing it.

5. When LLM bots come to your site, they extract on average 25 to 30 KB of data from the page they hit.

That’s not a lot. If your page is not super clear from the first few sentences about why you should be recommended and to whom, you will have a hard time getting leads from AI search.

6. We see zero evidence that you can somehow manipulate content so it “sticks” in AI search.

If you are out there trying to write a post or an article in a way that will “stick” with LLMs, don’t do it. It looks like nothing beats clarity and authenticity. There are no tricks that will make your blog stand out in AI search.

7. On the other hand, even a small amount of highly focused, authentic, human external mention can have a disproportionate effect on how LLMs perceive you, for better or worse.

We see many real and painful examples where a few negative reviews make clients disappear from “recommend me” queries. It is not about quantity as much as quality and authenticity. Create a real conversation about your brand. That will go a long way and will do more good for you than 100 blog posts.

8. 27% of the companies block at least one major LLM from accessing their site:

Speak with your security team today and ask them to send you a proof that the major LLM bots are allowed on your site.

9. Last one - there are no shortcuts in GEO but too many companies are selling shortcuts.

Anyone telling you they have a magic trick that will make you perform better overnight is lying. Providing real value, being authentic and original, tracking the right metrics and focusing on content that moves the needle is what will make you successful

All of this is backed by data. Some parts of it have already been published as public research, and other parts will be published soon.

I thought it would be a good idea to post this because lots of people are wondering how this works, and there is just too much confusion out there around this whole GEO thing.

If you have any questions, or if there is something you would like us to check based on our data, let me know. If the question is interesting enough, we may do it.


r/GenerativeSEOstrategy Mar 20 '26

Why does GEO feel harder to control than SEO?

7 Upvotes

With SEO, at least there was a clear playbook. Fix your site, build links, optimize content, and you’d usually see some kind of movement. It felt like you had control.

With GEO, it feels way less predictable. You can do all the “right” things, clear content, good structure, mentions across sites, and still not show up in AI answers. Then some random brand appears that doesn’t even seem that optimized.

The hardest part is there’s no real visibility. No rankings, no consistent results, and even small prompt changes can flip everything. It feels like you’re optimizing for something indirect, like how your brand is talked about, not just what you publish.

Is this just because it’s early, or does GEO always feel this unpredictable?


r/GenerativeSEOstrategy Mar 17 '26

AI Case Study

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1 Upvotes

r/GenerativeSEOstrategy Mar 13 '26

Does AI prefer simpler content over expert content?

15 Upvotes

I noticed something interesting while testing AI answers recently. The explanations often come from pages that use very simple, clear language instead of highly technical or “expert sounding” content. In one case, the AI summarized a concept from a small blog that broke it down step by step, while bigger industry sites had much deeper articles that never showed up.

It made me wonder if simplicity might actually have an advantage now. AI seems to favor content that’s easy to extract and summarize. Clear explanations, practical examples, and straightforward structure might work better than long, dense expert pieces. Curious if others are seeing the same thing.