A Framework for Understanding the Shift from Search Results to AI Recommendations
By Jack Headford, Operations Lead at Distl
SEO, at its core, is about what you say about yourself on the internet and how easy it is for Google to find it. You control the message. You build the pages. You optimise the technical structure. Google acts as the marketplace where people come to search, and your job is to ensure you show up when they do.
GEO is fundamentally different. It is about what the internet thinks about you in a vacuum. The AI does not just crawl your website and present it to users. It synthesises everything it can find about you from across the web, forms an opinion, and delivers that opinion as a recommendation.
This distinction matters because it changes what you are optimising for, who you are marketing to, and how your business gets discovered.
The Marketplace vs The Recommendation
When someone searches Google, they receive a list of results. Ten blue links (plus ads, maps, and features) that they then evaluate themselves. The user is actively shopping. They click through multiple options, compare what they find, and make their own assessment. Google is the marketplace, your website is your stall.
When someone asks ChatGPT, Perplexity, or uses Google’s AI Mode, they receive something psychologically quite different, a recommendation. The AI has already done the evaluation. It presents its answer with the confidence of a knowledgeable friend who has researched the options and is telling you what they found.
This shift has significant implications. In the traditional search model, getting on the first page meant you had a chance to make your case. The user would visit your site, read your content, and decide if you were right for them. In the AI recommendation model, the decision may already be made before anyone visits your website. The AI has formed its opinion based on everything it found about you, and it has recommended accordingly.
You are marketing to the AI itself, which then recommends you to people.
What the Internet Thinks About You (In a Vacuum)
The phrase “in a vacuum” is critical here. When an AI forms its opinion about your business, it pulls from everything publicly accessible on the internet. This includes what you have said about yourself on your website, but it extends far beyond that.
The AI considers your Google reviews from your Business Profile. It looks at whether you appear in relevant directories and what those listings say. It finds Reddit threads where people discussed their experience with you. It locates industry publications that mentioned your work. It identifies any forum posts, social media discussions, or third-party articles that reference your business.
All of this gets synthesised into a single perspective, and that perspective forms the basis of whether you get recommended.
The Businesses Most at Risk
This creates a particular challenge for businesses that have historically relied on personal selling to close deals. Companies that say “once we get in the room with people, they understand what we are about” are in the most vulnerable position.
The problem is straightforward: if the internet in a vacuum does not provide enough positive signal about your business, you may never get in the room at all. The AI will recommend your competitor instead. The prospect will never reach your website, never see your case studies, never experience your expertise firsthand.
Businesses that have invested in their digital presence, built genuine authority across multiple platforms, accumulated reviews, and established themselves in the broader online conversation are positioned to benefit. Those that relied on word-of-mouth, personal networks, and in-person conversion while neglecting their digital footprint face a new kind of invisibility.
Marketing to the Machine
Understanding GEO through this lens clarifies what needs to change in your approach.
Traditional SEO focused primarily on your owned properties. Your website structure, your content, your technical implementation. The goal was making your assets as visible and compelling as possible within Google’s index.
GEO requires thinking about your entire digital footprint. Every place where your business is mentioned, discussed, reviewed, or referenced contributes to what the AI “thinks” about you. Optimising only your website while ignoring your broader presence is like perfecting your CV while having a problematic social media history.
This does not mean SEO fundamentals become irrelevant. Your website remains the primary owned asset where you control the narrative. Strong technical SEO, quality content, and clear expertise signals all contribute to AI perception. What changes is the recognition that your website is one input among many, and potentially not even the most influential one for certain queries.
The Sources AI Actually References
Research into AI citation patterns reveals which sources carry weight in recommendation decisions. Google Business Profile reviews appear frequently, particularly for local service queries. Reddit discussions get cited when AI is looking for authentic user experiences. Industry directories and “best of” lists influence category recommendations. YouTube content with proper transcripts allows AI to reference video expertise.
Notably, AI platforms are often looking for consensus. When multiple independent sources say positive things about a business, that creates a stronger signal than a single well-optimised website claiming excellence. Third-party validation carries weight precisely because the AI recognises it as independent of what you say about yourself.
This means the work of building reputation across platforms, encouraging genuine reviews, participating in industry discussions, and creating share-worthy content has taken on new strategic importance. These activities always had value, but they now directly influence whether AI recommends your business.
Discovering What the Internet Actually Thinks
Most businesses have never audited their AI perception. They know their Google rankings. They track their website traffic. They may monitor their reviews. But few have systematically investigated what AI platforms actually say about them when asked.
This creates a dangerous blind spot. A business might have excellent search rankings while simultaneously having poor AI recommendations, perhaps due to negative Reddit discussions, missing from key directories, or lack of third-party validation. Conversely, a business with modest search rankings might be getting strong AI recommendations because of excellent reviews and positive online sentiment.
The only way to know is to ask. Query ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and Gemini with the questions your potential customers might ask. “Who is the best accountant in Perth?” “Which marketing agencies specialise in my industry?” “What do people say about [your business name]?”
The answers reveal your current position. Are you being recommended? What reasons does the AI give? How do you compare to competitors mentioned in the same response? Where is the AI getting its information?
Common Discoveries
Businesses conducting this audit often discover uncomfortable truths. The AI may state inaccurate information about services, pricing, or location. It may recommend competitors while ignoring your business entirely. It may cite outdated information that no longer reflects your capabilities. It may reference negative experiences that you were unaware existed online.
These “hallucinations” and gaps represent immediate opportunities. Incorrect information can often be addressed by strengthening signals elsewhere on the web. Invisibility in recommendations indicates a need to build presence across the sources AI references. Negative sentiment requires understanding the source and either addressing legitimate concerns or building sufficient positive signal to outweigh it.
A Practical Framework for GEO
Moving from understanding to action requires a structured approach. The following framework addresses both the foundational requirements inherited from traditional SEO and the new considerations unique to AI-driven discovery.
Foundation: Your Owned Properties
Your website remains the primary asset where you control the message. Strong technical SEO ensures AI can access and understand your content. Comprehensive, authoritative content establishes your expertise on topics relevant to your business. Clear entity signals (About pages, author credentials, contact information, schema markup) help AI understand who you are and what you do.
This layer also includes ensuring AI crawlers can access your site. Configuration files like robots.txt and the newer llms.txt format guide how AI systems interact with your content. Blocking AI crawlers (sometimes done unintentionally through aggressive bot filtering) can make you invisible to the recommendation engine entirely.
Enhancement: AI-Specific Optimisation
Beyond the foundations, specific optimisation for AI citation improves recommendation likelihood. This includes structuring content to be easily extracted and quoted. Statistics, specific claims, and clear answers to common questions give AI something concrete to reference. Expert positioning through author credentials, industry recognition, and demonstrated experience provides the authority signals AI looks for when deciding whether to trust a source.
Monitoring how AI platforms perceive your brand over time allows measurement and iteration. Just as rank tracking became essential for SEO, AI perception tracking is becoming essential for GEO.
Expansion: The Broader Internet Presence
The most significant shift in GEO thinking involves optimising presence across platforms where AI forms its opinions. Google Business Profile requires active management and review cultivation. Industry directories need accurate, comprehensive listings. Social platforms (particularly those AI frequently cites like Reddit and YouTube) benefit from strategic presence rather than abandonment.
Brand sentiment monitoring across these platforms reveals how the internet talks about you when you are not in the room. This intelligence informs both defensive actions (addressing negative sentiment) and offensive strategy (amplifying positive signal in underrepresented channels).
Evaluating Your Position
The shift from SEO to GEO can be assessed through a series of questions that reveal current positioning and identify gaps.
What does the internet say about you that you did not write? Beyond your owned content, what third-party mentions, reviews, and discussions exist? Is the sentiment positive, negative, or simply absent?
If AI could only see the internet and nothing else, would it recommend you? Remove your sales capability, your network, your ability to convert in person. Based purely on public digital information, do you look like the right choice?
What are the gaps between your capabilities and your digital representation? Many excellent businesses have poor digital footprints. The quality of your work and the quality of your online presence may be completely disconnected.
Where does your ideal customer ask for recommendations? Whether that is ChatGPT, industry forums, Reddit, or Google, your presence needs to be strong in those specific locations.
The Opportunity Ahead
The transition from search results to AI recommendations is not a threat to businesses with genuine expertise and strong reputations. The old model rewarded those who could optimise most aggressively for Google’s algorithm. The new model rewards those who have built real authority, delivered genuine value, and earned positive sentiment across the digital landscape.
For businesses that have been doing the right things, GEO is a chance to have those investments recognised in a new channel. For those that have been cutting corners or neglecting their digital presence, it is a prompt to address the gap before invisibility becomes permanent.
The question is no longer “How do we rank on Google?” It has expanded to include “What does the internet think about us, and how do we shape that perception?”
The businesses that answer this question honestly and act on what they find will be the ones that AI recommends. And in a world where a recommendation from AI carries the psychological weight of a recommendation from a trusted friend, that matters more than ever.
About Distl
Distl is a Perth-based integrated digital marketing agency helping Australian businesses understand and improve what the internet thinks about them. Our Generative Engine Optimisation services include comprehensive AI perception audits, brand sentiment analysis across platforms AI references, and strategic optimisation to improve recommendation likelihood. Combined with our SEO foundations, we help businesses build the complete digital presence that modern discovery channels require.
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