AI Search for Startups: Earn Citations Before You Are Well Known
An operational AI-search playbook for startups: build verifiable evidence, source-ready pages, platform access and measurement without citation guarantees.
Tag: GEO
GEO vs SEO: What Changes When AI Writes the Answer?
Generative engine optimization (GEO) is the emerging practice of making your content, entities, and evidence easier for generative search systems to understand, retrieve, and cite. It is an editorial practice grounded in academic research and Google’s own documentation — not an official Google feature, not a citation guarantee, and not a replacement for SEO. This article defines GEO, contrasts it with SEO, and shows where to start.
Why SEO Strategy Changes by Industry
Vertical SEO is SEO adapted to a single industry’s search behaviour, SERP shape, trust requirements, decision cycle, and conversion path. Generic checklists often underperform because they treat all industries as one; vertical SEO treats SERP reality, intent, entities, content, and conversion as five distinct surfaces to inspect, then ships an industry-shaped strategy instead of a template.
How to Plan an AI Search Budget in 2026
Public AI search benchmarks for 2026 are not reliable enough to anchor a budget to. Build the AEO/GEO budget around scope and measurement instead: what you are protecting, what you can actually measure, and what would change a content decision. The framework below sizes the work without inventing enterprise survey numbers, and flags where common ‘AI search benchmark’ claims fall apart.
How to Read Search Console’s Generative AI Report
On June 3, 2026, Google announced Search Generative AI performance reports inside Search Console, covering AI Overviews, AI Mode and Discover AI surfaces. Google is rolling them out to a subset of sites first, and the same data still lives in the overall performance report. The new report shows impressions, pages, countries, devices (Search only) and dates — useful for visibility baselining, not for proving traffic loss.