Get named when AI recommendsGenerative engine optimization for businesses and individuals
We make your business easy for ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude and Copilot to find, trust and recommend, so you’re on the shortlist when someone asks an AI who to call.
WHAT IT DOESLOG
“Who’s a good accountant near me?”
→ Your firm on the shortlist
AI crawler blocked by mistake
→ Search crawlers let back in
Competitor on every “best of” list
→ Your listings and reviews built up
Wrong facts about you online
→ Traced and corrected
“A customer asks ChatGPT for a good kitchen fitter nearby. It names three firms in one confident paragraph. You’ve been trading for twelve years, and you aren’t one of them.”
SOUND FAMILIAR?
What is generative engine optimization (GEO)?
Generative engine optimisation is the work of making your business easy for AI assistants such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude and Microsoft Copilot to find, trust and recommend. When someone asks one of them for a supplier, a product or a local business, the assistant searches the web, reads what it finds and writes an answer that names a handful of businesses. GEO is about being one of those names, described accurately.
The term comes from a 2023 research paper, which found that adding sources, quotations and statistics to a page made it noticeably more visible in AI-written answers. In practice the assistants rely on two things: whether their search crawlers can read your website, and what the rest of the web says about you in reviews, listings, articles and forums. Tamkoz works on both, for businesses and individuals, and measures it the only honest way: by asking the assistants your customers’ questions, every month.
THE JOBS IT TAKES ON
GENERATIVE ENGINE OPTIMISATION (GEO)
“Who’s a good accountant near me?”
→ Your firm on the shortlist
AI crawler blocked by mistake
→ Search crawlers let back in
Competitor on every “best of” list
→ Your listings and reviews built up
Wrong facts about you online
→ Traced and corrected
Every month
→ Prompts re-run, mentions tracked
Why AI assistants leave you out
When ChatGPT or Perplexity recommends a competitor, there is usually a reason you can fix.
Your site blocks AI search crawlers, often by accident
→ Robots.txt and firewall settings checked so search crawlers can read your pages, while training crawlers stay your choice.
Your website never says plainly what you do and where
→ Clear statements of services, areas, prices and who you serve, on pages written to be quoted.
The rest of the web barely mentions you
→ Listings, directory profiles, reviews and expert mentions built up on the sites assistants read.
Your details disagree from site to site
→ Name, address, services and opening details made consistent everywhere they appear.
AI describes you wrongly
→ Wrong facts traced to their source and corrected, and the right facts published where assistants look.
Nobody knows what the assistants say about you
→ A monthly prompt test across assistants, so you can see your mentions, your competitors’ and the change.
Why an AI assistant names who it names
Ask an AI assistant for a recommendation and it reads the web first. What it finds about you decides whether you’re in the answer.
AI assistant
SAMPLE ANSWER · ILLUSTRATION
What just happened
Someone asked an AI assistant for a kitchen fitter. Here’s what it said, and what it based each part on:
SAMPLE CONVERSATION · FICTIONAL BUSINESSES, NOT A REAL AI PRODUCT
Who needs generative engine optimization?
Businesses and individuals whose customers ask AI for a recommendation before they search or call.
Local services and trades
“A good plumber near me who works weekends”: assistants now answer questions like this with names.
Professional firms
Accountants, solicitors, consultants and agencies, where buyers ask AI for a shortlist before they ask a friend.
Clinics and wellbeing
Dentists, physios and therapists chosen on reputation, which is exactly what assistants summarise.
Shops and brands
Products compared and recommended in AI answers, often drawn from reviews and comparison articles.
Hotels, restaurants and venues
“Where can we eat tonight that takes dogs?”: specific, local, and decided in one answer.
Software and B2B services
“Best tools for…” and “alternatives to…” questions, where being missing means being out of the running.
Experts, authors and speakers
People whose name should come up when an assistant is asked who knows the subject.
A GOOD FIT IF…
- Customers say they “asked ChatGPT” before calling you
- AI recommends your competitors and not you
- You have good reviews that AI never mentions
- You want to know what AI says about you today
What we do
An AI visibility baseline
Your customers’ questions put to ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot and Google’s AI answers: who is named, how you’re described and which sources are cited.
Crawler access, set on purpose
Search crawlers allowed so assistants can read and cite you; training crawlers allowed or blocked as you choose.
Pages assistants can quote
Plain statements of what you do, for whom, where and at what kind of price, with evidence: sources, figures, named experts and dates.
A consistent footprint
Your business described the same way on your site, your Google and Bing profiles, directories and social profiles.
Third-party proof
Reviews asked for properly, the right directories and lists joined, and expert comment placed where your customers’ questions are discussed.
Corrections
Wrong facts that assistants repeat, traced back and fixed at the source.
A monthly mention report
The same prompts, re-run each month: mentions, position, accuracy and the sources behind them.
How generative engine optimization works with us
Measure what AI says today, fix what you control, build what others say about you, then measure again.
- ORDER 001START
1×Ask the assistants
We put your customers’ real questions to the main AI assistants and record who they recommend, how they describe you and where their information came from.
- ORDER 002BUILD
1×Open the doors
Crawler access, indexing and the facts on your own site come first, because an assistant can’t recommend what it can’t read.
- ORDER 003CHECK
1×Build the evidence
Reviews, listings, comparisons and expert mentions on the sites assistants trust, done honestly and in your name.
- ORDER 004GO LIVE
1×Measure monthly
The same questions, asked again every month, with a plain report on what changed and what we’re doing next.
The assistants and sources we work on
Each assistant searches and weighs the web differently, so we check each one.
- AI ASSISTANTS
- ChatGPTGoogle GeminiPerplexityClaudeMicrosoft CopilotGoogle AI Overviews and AI Mode
- CRAWLERS WE CONFIGURE
- OAI-SearchBotPerplexityBotClaude-SearchBotGooglebotBingbot
- BUSINESS PROFILES
- Google Business ProfileBing PlacesApple Business Connect
- WHERE REPUTATIONS LIVE
- Review sitesIndustry directoriesReddit and forumsYouTubeLinkedIn
- MEASUREMENT
- Prompt trackingGoogle Search ConsoleBing Webmaster ToolsAI referrals in your analytics
- PAGES ASSISTANTS QUOTE
- Service and area pagesPricing guidesComparisonsCase studiesOriginal figures
We don’t post fake reviews, plant comments or pay for mentions dressed up as opinion. Assistants and search engines keep getting better at spotting it, and in many countries it breaks consumer protection law.
How much does generative engine optimization cost?
No AI assistant charges to recommend you in its answers. The cost is the work: a baseline and fix-up, then optional monthly building and tracking, quoted in writing.
WHAT AFFECTS THE PRICE
How many questions and assistants
A handful of local questions across three assistants is a small baseline. A national product range is a large one.
Your starting footprint
A business with reviews and listings already needs less building than a new one.
Website fixes
Blocked crawlers or thin pages need fixing before anything else can work.
Competition
Categories where big brands dominate AI answers take longer to break into than local or specialist ones.
Monthly work
Optional: reviews, listings, content and a monthly mention report.
WHAT THE PLATFORMS AND THE RESEARCH SAY
- OpenAI says OAI-SearchBot is used to surface websites in ChatGPT’s search features and recommends allowing it in robots.txt. GPTBot is a separate crawler for content that may be used to train its models; disallowing it opts a site out of that training. Source: OpenAI.
- Perplexity says PerplexityBot surfaces and links websites in its search results, is not used to crawl content for AI foundation models, and recommends allowing it in robots.txt. Its systems can take up to 24 hours to reflect a change. Source: Perplexity.
- The 2023 research paper that named generative engine optimisation (accepted at KDD 2024) found its methods could boost a source’s visibility in generative engine answers by up to 40%. Source: Aggarwal et al..
CHECKED 23 OCTOBER 2026. CRAWLER NAMES AND RULES CHANGE, SO WE RE-CHECK THEM BEFORE EVERY PROJECT.
YOUR QUOTE · FIXED AND IN WRITING
We quote the baseline, the fixes and any monthly plan in writing, in your currency, before anything starts.
How long does GEO take?
Crawler and website fixes can be picked up quickly. Reputation takes months to build, so expect a steady climb, not a switch.
AI answers vary from one asking to the next, so we run each prompt several times and report the pattern, not a single screenshot.
TYPICAL TIMELINE
YOUR QUOTE HAS THE REAL DATES
01 AI VISIBILITY BASELINEFIRST TWO WEEKS
Prompts run across assistants: who is named, and why.
02 ACCESS AND WEBSITE FIXESWEEKS TWO TO FOUR
Crawlers, facts and quotable pages put right.
03 BUILDING THE FOOTPRINTMONTHS ONE TO SIX
Reviews, listings and mentions, steadily.
04 MENTION REPORTMONTHLY
The same prompts, re-run and compared.
Generative engine optimization questions
Something else? Ask in the chat. A person answers.
What is generative engine optimization (GEO)?
Making your business easy for AI assistants such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude and Copilot to find, trust and recommend. It covers whether their search crawlers can read your site, how clearly your site says what you do, and what reviews, listings and articles elsewhere say about you.
How do I get my business recommended by ChatGPT?
Make sure ChatGPT’s search crawler (OAI-SearchBot) can read your site, say plainly on your pages what you do, where and for whom, keep your details consistent across the web, and build genuine reviews and mentions on the sites it reads. Then ask it the questions your customers ask, regularly, and watch what changes.
Can I pay to be recommended by AI?
Not in the answer itself. Some assistants now show labelled ads, but being recommended in the answer has to be earned through what the web says about you. Be wary of anyone selling guaranteed AI mentions.
Is GEO different from SEO?
It builds on SEO rather than replacing it, because AI assistants search the web before they answer. The difference is the goal: being named, and described accurately, inside an answer. That depends more on reviews, mentions and consistent facts across many sites than on ranking a single page.
What’s the difference between GEO and AEO?
The terms overlap. We use answer engine optimisation (AEO) for being quoted as the direct answer to a question in search results and voice answers, and GEO for being named in AI assistants’ recommendations. The work overlaps too, and most businesses benefit from both.
Should I block AI crawlers from my website?
Separate training from search. OpenAI, for example, runs one crawler that finds pages for ChatGPT’s search answers and another that collects content for training its models, so you can block training and still allow the crawlers that let assistants cite you. Block the search crawlers and you drop out of those answers.
Do I need an llms.txt file?
It can’t hurt, but don’t expect much from it yet. llms.txt is a proposed convention, not an adopted standard, and Google says its AI features need no special files at all. Crawler access and clear pages matter far more.
Why does AI describe my business wrongly?
Assistants repeat what they find, so a wrong fact usually lives somewhere on the web: an old directory listing, an out-of-date article or one of your own old pages. We trace the claim to its source, fix or update it, and publish the right version where assistants look.
How do you measure GEO?
With a fixed set of prompts, the questions your customers actually ask, run on each assistant several times a month, because answers vary from one asking to the next. We record whether you’re mentioned, where, how accurately and which sources are cited, and we watch your analytics for visitors arriving from AI assistants.
How long does generative engine optimization take?
Crawler and website fixes can be picked up within days or weeks. Building enough reviews and mentions to change who gets recommended usually takes months. We report monthly, so the progress, or the lack of it, is there to see.
Further reading
- Free AI readiness checkChecks whether ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude and Bing’s search bots are allowed in, and whether they can read your text.
- Is your website ready for AI search? A free 17-point readiness checkEvery check and its points, what we deliberately don’t score (llms.txt, training bots), and the fixes you can do yourself this week.
- How to rank in ChatGPT and Google’s AI answers in 2026The 12-point checklist and the prompt set we start from, free to use yourself.
- ChatGPT vs Claude vs Gemini vs Grok vs MuseWhich assistants people use, and what each one is good at, as of October 2026.
GOES WELL WITH
- Answer engine optimisation (AEO)We shape your website so Google’s AI Overviews, featured snippets and voice assistants can lift your answer and name you as the source, when customers ask the questions you know best.
- SEO & local searchWe make it easier for local customers to find you on Google and Maps, and for AI search tools to recommend you.
- WebsitesFast, good-looking websites that tell people what you do, make it easy to buy or book, and look after themselves.
SOURCES · CHECKED 23 OCTOBER 2026
Be on the shortlist.
Tell us the questions your customers ask AI. We’ll show you what the assistants say about you today, and quote in writing to change it.