AI Search
Explore Growth Gary articles about AI search, traditional SEO, AI visibility, GEO, AEO, citations, search tools, and the changing discovery landscape.
Choose the discovery problem you need to solve
- People cannot find an important page: begin with SEO fundamentals and technical accessibility.
- Your brand is missing from AI answers: start with AI visibility explained, then use the small-business checklist.
- Nearby customers struggle to find your business: review Google Business Profile basics and the accuracy of the business information customers see.
- You need evidence before changing anything: follow the AI visibility audit guide rather than judging one generated answer.
Keep SEO, answers and citations in perspective
SEO concerns discovery and understanding in search. AEO and GEO describe overlapping work around direct and generative answers. The labels are useful for discussing the task, but they do not establish three separate checklists that every business must buy.
Google states that its existing SEO fundamentals remain relevant to AI Overviews and AI Mode; there is no special schema or additional optimization requirement for those features. That guidance is specific to Google and should not be treated as a guarantee of inclusion across every AI platform.
Measure a repeatable sample
Choose the customer questions, market and platforms before collecting answers. Keep the wording and conditions comparable, record the date and save the supporting evidence. Distinguish a brand mention from a citation, a recommendation from a passing reference, and all of those from a visit or customer action.
For example, a local business might review a small set of service questions and record whether it appeared, which sources were linked and whether its location was represented accurately. That is a scoped observation—not proof of how every nearby customer sees search results.
Turn findings into a short action list
Check whether the relevant page is accessible, whether the business facts agree, whether the answer is useful and supported, and whether related pages link to it. Prioritize a few observable gaps and retain the baseline so you can recheck after changes.
Avoid creating repetitive location pages, inventing credentials, publishing unsupported claims or buying a “guaranteed citation” promise. More markup or more AI-written articles does not substitute for accurate information and a useful customer experience.
Before your next audit: define the questions, record the platform and date, save examples, separate facts from interpretation and choose one owner for the next check. Use the glossary whenever a report’s terminology is unclear.
First-party reference: Google’s AI features and your website guidance. The articles below provide deeper explanations and current analysis without replacing those platform-specific requirements.
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Are Backlinks Still the Biggest Citation Driver?
Backlinks still support AI citation visibility, but current evidence points to a broader mix of search rank, brand mentions, relevance, and source quality.
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What’s New in AI Visibility Tools?
See how AI visibility tools are evolving across prompt tracking, citations, share of voice, sentiment, technical monitoring, and reporting.
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Biggest AI Search Tool Releases This Month
Explore the latest AI search tool updates, including agentic research, connected context, source controls, and what marketers should test.
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Is SEO Becoming More Valuable Because of AI?
AI answers have created an uncomfortable question for marketers: if a search engine can summarize the answer without a click, why keep investing in SEO? The short answer is that SEO is becoming more valuable—but the value is spreading beyond ten blue links. Search optimization now helps a brand get crawled, understood, ranked, cited, compared,…
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We Analyzed High-Ranking Pages: What Still Matters Most in Google
TL;DR The clearest lesson from current ranking-factor resources is that Google rankings still begin with relevance: a page must satisfy the intent behind the query. Helpful depth, clear organization, trustworthy signals, and links from reputable sites reinforce that foundation. Technical SEO makes the content accessible to Google, while page experience can support performance but rarely…
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What Is AEO?
Learn what Answer Engine Optimization is, how AEO differs from SEO and GEO, and how to structure content for direct answers and citations.
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What Is GEO?
Learn what Generative Engine Optimization is, how GEO differs from SEO and AEO, and how to make your content more useful to AI systems.
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The 10 Best SEO Tools for Small Businesses
Disclosure: Growth Gary may earn a commission if you purchase through an affiliate button on this page, at no additional cost to you. Editorial recommendations remain independent. See the Affiliate Disclosure and review methodology. By GrowthGaryUpdated September 8, 2026 SEO gets complicated remarkably quickly. You start out wanting to know which keywords your customers search…
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Best AI Citation Tools for Tracking Sources, Mentions, and Citation Share
By GrowthGaryUpdated September 19, 2026 Traditional SEO tools tell you where your pages rank. AI citation tools tell you whether ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Google AI Overviews, Claude, and other answer engines are actually using your pages as sources. That distinction matters. A brand can rank well in Google and still be absent from AI-generated answers.…
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How to Increase AI Citations: 12 Practical Strategies That Actually Work
You’ve published great content. Your pages rank well. People are finding your website through Google. But when you ask ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, or Google AI about your industry, your competitors keep showing up while your brand is nowhere to be found. It’s a frustrating experience, and one many marketers are running into. The good news…