From SEO to GEO: Adapting to Web 4.0

Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) is rapidly changing the way businesses are perceiving search. Unlike traditional SEO, which focuses on ranking websites for human searches, GEO ensures AI agents can find, understand, and use your content. Web 4.0 and the agentic web are already reshaping how people search, decide, and interact online. For businesses and marketers, this means adapting how websites are created and structured, and taking practical steps to stay visible and relevant in an AI-driven world.

GEO introduces a new frontier for digital strategy, but the principles that make a site trustworthy in Google search are still the foundation. If your content is credible and authoritative in traditional search, it’s far more likely to appear in AI-powered results like ChatGPT, Claude, and Google AI Overviews.

What Is Web 4.0 and the Agentic Web?

Web 4.0, or the agentic web, marks a major shift in how people interact with the internet. In previous eras, users actively searched for information, clicked links, and navigated websites themselves. In Web 4.0, AI agents handle many of these tasks automatically. They search, compare, summarise, and even make recommendations or purchases on behalf of users.

Instead of manually scrolling through results, people might ask an AI agent: “Find the best budget smartwatch and buy it for me.” The agent handles the research and delivers the result. This is the core of the agentic web: AI intermediates user interactions, fundamentally changing how we discover and consume content.

Major tech platforms are embedding AI deeper into search and discovery. Industry leaders expect most consumer internet activity will soon be mediated by AI, with billions of agents operating in parallel. For businesses, visibility now depends not only on human attention, but also on how well AI agents can access and interpret your content.

From SEO to GEO: Optimising for AI Agents

Traditional SEO focuses on ranking for humans. You optimise for keywords, meta descriptions, backlinks, and other signals to attract clicks. GEO takes this further by ensuring your content is understood, trusted, and selected by AI agents.

When an AI generates an answer to a query, GEO helps make your content the source. That means:

• Clear, structured content AI can easily parse
• Authoritative information AI recognises as credible
• Schema and structured data to highlight key facts and context

Put simply, GEO is SEO adapted for AI-first search. If a user asks ChatGPT or Claude for recommendations, GEO ensures your brand features in the response.

A practical rule of thumb: if your site performs well in Google search, you’re probably already in a strong position for GEO. The fundamentals remain the same: useful, well structured, people first content backed by brand credibility.

The Realities of GEO: What's Known, What's Not

GEO is still an emerging field. There’s no definitive guide to ranking across AI interfaces like ChatGPT, Claude, or Google AI Overviews. But one principle is already clear: brand credibility matters more than ever.

Right now, the strongest predictor of GEO visibility is how well your brand performs in traditional search. If your site ranks well in Google and follows E-E-A-T and Helpful Content guidelines, it’s highly likely your content will appear in AI results too.

GEO is already changing user behaviour particularly around informational searches. People are getting answers directly from overviews or AI summaries. This means fewer visits to traditional blog pages, especially in content heavy sectors. That said, commercial actions, like booking a service or purchasing a product still require a website visit. These high-intent terms aren’t currently triggering AI overviews in Google. That interaction remains irreplaceable.

Generative AI Is Changing How People Search

Generative AI is altering how people find and consume content. LLMs like GPT-4 and Claude deliver direct answers, summaries, and product suggestions, often without users clicking through to a website. This reshapes the value of top-of-funnel content.

AI-driven platforms are growing rapidly. ChatGPT, for instance, is now the eighth largest search engine globally. Still, Google owns over 85% of the market. Users are beginning to combine traditional search with AI-powered discovery to find products, services, and information.

This dual path behaviour has clear implications:

• AI agents must be able to access and interpret your content
• Structured, credible information increases chances of inclusion
• GEO keeps your brand visible across both human and AI-driven channels

Why GEO Matters for Marketers

Until recently, success meant ranking well and getting clicks. Now, visibility also depends on whether AI agents recommend your brand. That hinges on the same things that make great SEO: credibility, clarity, structure, and trust.

Ignore GEO, and your brand might be invisible to AI systems, even if you dominate Google rankings.

Compare two approaches:

• AI + SEO: Brands that optimise for both human and AI audiences get surfaced in search results, summaries, and recommendations.
• SEO only: Brands relying solely on traditional SEO risk losing visibility as AI begins to shape the search journey.

What matters most:

• Clear, authoritative content: AI prioritises trustworthy, well written pages
• Positive brand signals: Organic mentions and reviews help LLMs recognise and recommend your brand
• Structured formatting: Pages with clean headings, schema markup, and accessible data are easier for AI to interpret

Practical Steps for Adapting to GEO

You don’t need to start from scratch, but there are smart steps to take:

• Make your site AI-accessible: Ensure AI crawlers can access your content. Use robots.txt and consider adopting llm.txt to control LLM indexing.
• Use structured data: Mark up your content using schema, FAQs, and product data to support easy extraction by AI.
• Focus on authority: Invest in credible, well sourced, human-first content. Keep it current.
• Build your brand online: Organic mentions, quality backlinks, and trustworthy reviews boost your AI credibility.
• Monitor your AI presence: Use emerging tools to track how your brand appears in chatbots and AI overviews.

Looking Ahead

Web 4.0 isn’t coming, it’s already here. GEO is the evolution of SEO for a world where AI does the searching, sorting, and recommending. Brands that get ahead of the shift will hold visibility and influence across both traditional and AI-powered discovery.

The fundamentals still apply: be accessible, credible, and structured. Do that, and your content will perform, whether it’s read by a person or chosen by a machine.