Research Blog
Every post is built from studies in our evidence database: real data, cited sources, and findings that challenge as much as they confirm.
Generative engine optimisation is the practice of improving content so AI systems — ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, and Gemini — select it as a citation source. Here is the evidence base: what GEO tactics are confirmed, which are overhyped, and how to prioritise.
ChatGPT does not use backlinks or PageRank. It selects sources based on author authority, content structure, brand entity recognition, and retrieval relevance. Here is what controlled studies show about how to get your content cited in ChatGPT answers.
Traditional keyword tools measure Google search volume. AEO optimises for LLM answer selection. The two problems require fundamentally different inputs. Here is what the research shows about how to identify the queries where AI systems are choosing sources — and how to become one of them.
Google's E-E-A-T framework was built for human raters assessing traditional search results. AI systems weight its signals differently — and some signals that matter for Google barely register for ChatGPT or Perplexity. Research from Presence AI, AccuraCast, and Ahrefs shows where E-E-A-T applies to AI search and where the framework needs updating.
JSON-LD scored zero out of six for readability across all major AI crawlers tested. The title tag was the only metadata element that 5 of 6 crawlers could read. A Writesonic study of 62 webpage elements reveals which technical signals AI systems actually ingest — and what a proper AI crawlability audit should check.
An AirOps analysis of 815,484 pages found the AI citation sweet spot is 500 to 2,000 words. A separate study of 30 million citations found 10,000-word pages get 62 times more citations. Both are correct. They are measuring different things.
A peer-reviewed arXiv study found that GPT-4o draws from a source pool that overlaps with Google by only 4%. Branded web mentions predict AI citations 3x more strongly than backlinks. Here is what the data says about how SEO and GEO differ and what actually drives AI visibility.
An analysis of 9,000 AI citation sources found that FAQ schema, the most recommended structured data type, appears in almost none of the pages ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews actually cite. Person schema appears in 58.9%. Here is what the data shows.
All findings referenced in these posts are drawn from the BetterAISearch tactics database, which tracks and scores AI search research by evidence quality, methodology, and publication tier.