SEO & GEO skill

SEO & GEO Optimization v3 (2026)

GEO = Generative Engine Optimization — get cited by AI engines, not just ranked. Each engine has a different stance; optimize for the union, not a single playbook.

What the engines actually say (2026)

Workflow

1. Technical SEO audit

curl -sL "URL" | grep -E "<title>|<meta name=\"description\"|application/ld\+json" | head -20
curl -s "URL/robots.txt"
curl -s "URL/sitemap.xml" | head -50

Core Web Vitals (2026 thresholds):

• LCP (Largest Contentful Paint) < 2.5s
• INP (Interaction to Next Paint) < 200ms — replaced FID in March 2024
• CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift) < 0.1

2. Crawler access — the 2026 robots.txt

# Classic search
User-agent: Googlebot
Allow: /
User-agent: Bingbot
Allow: /

# AI search (citation crawlers — allow if you want AI traffic)
User-agent: OAI-SearchBot          # ChatGPT search citations
Allow: /
User-agent: Claude-SearchBot       # Claude search grounding
Allow: /
User-agent: Claude-User            # User-triggered Claude fetches
Allow: /
User-agent: PerplexityBot
Allow: /

# AI training crawlers (allow/block per your policy)
User-agent: GPTBot                 # OpenAI training
User-agent: ClaudeBot              # Anthropic training
User-agent: Google-Extended        # Gemini training (NOT Googlebot)
User-agent: CCBot                  # Common Crawl

Sitemap: https://example.com/sitemap.xml

Key distinctions:

• Blocking GPTBot does not block ChatGPT citations — those use OAI-SearchBot.
• Blocking ClaudeBot does not block Claude search — that uses Claude-SearchBot.
• Blocking Google-Extended does not affect Google Search ranking — only Gemini training.
• ChatGPT-User and Claude-User are user-initiated; they are not subject to standard crawl restrictions.

Verify crawler IPs:

• OpenAI: https://openai.com/searchbot.json, https://openai.com/gptbot.json
• Anthropic: https://claude.com/crawling/bots.json

3. Per-engine GEO playbook

Google AI Overviews / AI Mode

"You don't need to create new machine readable files, AI text files, markup, or Markdown to appear." — Google

• Be indexable + snippet-eligible in classic Search. AI surfaces draw from the same index.
• Unique POV content. Google calls out "unique expert or experienced takes" over commodity rewrites.
• Do not create llms.txt for Google. Do not chunk content artificially. Do not ship scaled/templated commodity pages — flagged as spam.
• Structured data is not required for AI Overviews (still useful for rich results).

Bing Copilot (GEO)

Bing's updated guidelines define GEO as "focused on content eligibility for grounding and reference in AI responses." GEO doesn't guarantee citation — same as SEO doesn't guarantee ranking.

Best practices Bing lists explicitly:

• Facts presented clearly and directly. No vague or ambiguous entity references.
• Consistent naming across text, images, video (same entities/products/concepts).
• One topic per URL.
• Key info near the top of the page.
• IndexNow for freshness — "AI systems reference the most current version."
• Schema markup: not officially mandated, but content with proper schema correlates with ~2.5× higher AI citation rate in practice.

Meta directive effects on Copilot:

• NOARCHIVE — prevents Copilot use entirely
• NOCACHE — limits Copilot to URLs/titles/snippets
• DATA-NOSNIPPET — may reduce citation quality

Bing's new abuse policies (2026):

• Prompt Injection and AI Manipulation — dedicated section, will demote
• Keyword Stuffing and Artificially Engineered Language — content designed to trigger AI citations is treated as spam
• Scaled machine-generated content "without oversight, quality control, or editorial review… may be excluded from indexing" (softened from "malicious")

Track citations: Bing Webmaster Tools → AI Performance report (public preview, Feb 2026). See bing-webmaster.

ChatGPT Search (OpenAI)

• Allow OAI-SearchBot in robots.txt — opting out removes you from ChatGPT search answers entirely.
• Citation favors: structural clarity (headings, lists, FAQ), named entity density, passage extractability.
• ~44% of LLM citations come from the first 30% of the page — front-load the answer.
• Optimal cited passage is ~135–165 words, self-contained, fact-dense, directly answers a question.

Claude (Anthropic)

• Allow Claude-SearchBot and Claude-User for citation.
• No published ranking signals — Anthropic's stated principles: transparent, non-intrusive crawling that respects robots.txt and Crawl-delay.
• In practice: clean semantic HTML, traceable evidence, primary-source citations, declarative claims.

4. Universal GEO patterns (work across all engines)

5. Schema markup (JSON-LD)

Not required by Google for AI Overviews, but high-leverage for Bing/Copilot and rich results everywhere.

Priority types:

• Article / WebPage — every content page
• FAQPage — Q&A sections
• HowTo — tutorials
• Product + Offer + AggregateRating — commerce
• Organization / LocalBusiness — brand/local
• BreadcrumbList — navigation
• Person — author bios (E-E-A-T)
• Dataset — for data-driven content (Bing favors)

Validate: https://search.google.com/test/rich-results?url={url}

6. On-page meta

<title>{Primary Keyword} — {Brand}</title>
<meta name="description" content="{150–160 chars, contains keyword, answer-first}">
<meta name="robots" content="index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large">
<link rel="canonical" href="https://example.com/page/">
<meta property="og:title" content="{Title}">
<meta property="og:description" content="{Description}">
<meta property="og:image" content="{1200x630}">
<meta name="twitter:card" content="summary_large_image">

Checklist:

• One H1 with primary keyword
• Alt text descriptive (accessibility + image search)
• 3–5 internal links per page to topical cluster
• External links use rel="noopener noreferrer"
• URL short, hyphenated, lowercase
• Mobile-first responsive

7. International SEO

<link rel="alternate" hreflang="en" href="https://example.com/en/" />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="fr" href="https://example.com/fr/" />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="x-default" href="https://example.com/" />

Bing supports hreflang; double-check via Bing Webmaster Tools.

8. Measurement

What changed from v2

• Dropped Princeton "9 GEO methods" boost percentages (single-study, not corroborated by 2026 vendor guidance).
• Replaced legacy crawler list (anthropic-ai, claude-web) with current Anthropic agents (ClaudeBot, Claude-User, Claude-SearchBot).
• Replaced FID with INP in Core Web Vitals.
• Added per-engine 2026 stance: Google rejects llms.txt, Bing formally adopts GEO, OpenAI gates citation on OAI-SearchBot access, Anthropic publishes three distinct crawlers.
• Added Bing's new abuse policies and meta-directive effects on Copilot.

Sources

• Google: developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/ai-optimization-guide
• Bing: blogs.bing.com/webmaster/February-2026/Introducing-AI-Performance-in-Bing-Webmaster-Tools-Public-Preview
• OpenAI: developers.openai.com/api/docs/bots, help.openai.com Publishers FAQ
• Anthropic: support.claude.com/en/articles/8896518