LLM SEO: What It Is, What Works, What Google Says to Skip

LLM SEO is not about ranking.

It's about being recommended.

You want ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot and Google's AI features to name your brand. And cite your pages.

(LLM means large language model.)

Does a good Google ranking carry over? Mostly no.

Ahrefs ran 15,000 long-tail prompts through four AI assistants in early July 2025. On average, only 12% of the links they cited also ranked in Google's top 10 for the same prompt.

I've tested this across multiple client brands. This guide splits two things: what the engines' own documents confirm, and what only correlates with visibility.

What is LLM SEO? Recommended, not ranked

On Google, ten results fight for the top spot. Win, and you get a click.

An LLM writes one answer. It names a short list of brands.

Your goal: be one of the names. With a link beside it.

And people keep talking to an LLM. So your content has to answer the first question. And the next three.

The same work has other names: GEO, AEO, LLMO, AI SEO. This post compares them.

The mental model for this post:

LLMs only know what the internet knows about you.

If the web holds more useful, consistent information about your brand than about your competitors, you're more likely to be named.

How a prompt becomes an answer

A brand gets into an answer two ways.

1. The model knows it from training.
2. The engine searches the web at question time. And reads what comes back.

Google calls the live path retrieval-augmented generation. Its guide to AI features says it retrieves pages from the Search index and writes a response with links.

It also uses query fan-out: the model sends several related searches at once. Google's example: "how to fix a lawn that's full of weeds" can fan out to "best herbicides for lawns".

OpenAI describes a similar process for ChatGPT. Its help page says it sometimes partners with other search providers. And typically rewrites your question into one or more targeted queries.

So a search nobody typed can retrieve your page.

LLM SEO vs Traditional SEO

How much do the two overlap? In the Ahrefs study above:

• Perplexity: 28.6% of its cited URLs ranked in Google's top 10. The highest.
• The others: around 8%.

And for AI Overviews, Ahrefs' March 2026 update found 37.9% of cited URLs in the first ten blocks of the results page. Against about 76% in July 2025.

Ahrefs reads that as more reliance on fan-out results.

Keep investing in SEO. More: AI SEO vs traditional SEO.

Start here: let AI crawlers read your site

Check this first. You can block the search bots by accident.

• ChatGPT. OpenAI runs separate bots: OAI-SearchBot for search, GPTBot for training. Opt out of OAI-SearchBot and you're not shown in ChatGPT search answers. (You can still appear as a navigational link.) OpenAI recommends allowing it in robots.txt, and allowing its published IP ranges.
• Perplexity. PerplexityBot surfaces and links sites in Perplexity search results. Perplexity recommends allowing it in robots.txt.
• Your CDN. On 1 July 2025, Cloudflare said it was changing its default to block AI crawlers unless they pay creators. On Cloudflare? Check your AI crawler settings.
• JavaScript. In December 2024, Vercel found that none of the major AI crawlers it measured render JavaScript. That includes OAI-SearchBot, GPTBot and PerplexityBot. Gemini uses Googlebot's rendering. (Old data. Re-check it.)

A cheap test: open view-source on your page. Your key copy isn't there? Assume some engines can't see it.

The Page Inspector fetches a public URL and shows the text it extracts: title, meta description, headings, copy and visible page text. Then you can ask follow-up questions.

More: what ChatGPT reads on your website.

The cheapest win in LLM SEO: Consistency

Describe your brand the same way everywhere.

Your website. LinkedIn. X. Directory listings. Press releases.

Pick one description. Repeat it.

You're an "SEO consultant for lawyers"? Use that phrase everywhere.

Not "legal search visibility expert" on one profile. And "growth partner for law firms" on another.

Each variation is one more thing the model has to interpret.

In a July 2025 r/AskMarketing thread, one commenter's first rule: lock down your product category. Don't invent one.

The goal isn't originality. It's recognition.

The same comment says you can rank inside search-augmented LLMs faster than in Google. "Not easy, but easier."

A SaaS team in that thread saw more brand mentions on generic "best X software" prompts after six weeks. And called it "pretty inconsistent."

Keep your facts consistent too. Your site says $10 per month. A directory says $5. Now the model has conflicting signals.

Optimize for Prompts, not Keywords

On Google, people type fragments. "AI writer". "Best CRM".

On an LLM, they type the whole thought:

"What's the best AI writing tool for SEO if I'm a solo founder on a tight budget?"

So cover the full prompt. Budget. Use case. Type of buyer.

"Best X for Y" pages do that. So do comparison and alternatives pages.

Same category, two prompts, different names

Our leaderboard shows which products each AI engine names for a prompt.

Two prompts. One category.

(Cells show the weighted rank across engines, lower is better, and how many engines named the product. The startup scan has no Perplexity data, so it counts four engines.)

HubSpot leads both. Below it, the names change.

• Attio and Close aren't among the generic scan's 14 names.
• Salesforce, second for the generic prompt, is named once for the startup prompt. By Copilot.
• Gemini named none of HubSpot, Attio or Pipedrive for it.

One extra phrase changed who got named.

(Each is a single scan on one day. Engines vary between runs. An example, not a law.)

So write for the prompt your buyer types. Budget, team size, use case.

But Google sets a limit. Its guide says you don't need to cover every long-tail variation. And making separate content for every phrasing, mainly to manipulate AI responses, violates its scaled content abuse spam policy.

One honest page per real segment. Startups. Agencies. Not one per wording.

Why listicles work

Because the engines read them.

• Ahrefs, December 2025: in ChatGPT answers to 750 top-of-the-funnel prompts, "best X" blog lists were 43.8% of all page types across the source links.
• Our "best CRM for startups" scan: 14 of the 20 cited pages were listicles.

Google's AI Overview cited 12 pages in that scan. Seven were "best CRM for startups" lists on the sites of software companies: Baserow, monday.com, NetHunt, Quickbase, Salesforce, Slack and Zendesk.

And ChatGPT cited "Best CRMs for startups in 2026" from attio.com. Then named Attio second.

Cited and named. Not proof of cause.

Own the list. Get on the list.

Try both. See what works for you.

Own the list. Publish a "best [your category]" post on your own site, with yourself in the mix. It works. I've ranked this way myself and it still pulls citations.

Keep doing it.

Just don't lean too hard on self-heavy lists alone. Your AI visibility is still tied to your Google health. That can change.

Get on the list. This is the move that compounds. Independent publications. Review sites like G2. Third-party roundups in your category.

A listicle someone else publishes, with you on it, carries trust your own post can't fake.

The outreach: how to get into best-tools roundups.

Run both. Watch which one moves your mentions. Keep your own list honest and useful.

One more source: YouTube

In a December 2025 study of 75,000 brands, Ahrefs found that "YouTube mentions" correlated with AI visibility at about 0.737. Across ChatGPT, AI Mode and AI Overviews.

(A YouTube mention is your brand name in a video title, transcript or description.)

That was the strongest factor it measured.

Ahrefs notes that correlation isn't causation. And that Google and OpenAI have trained models on YouTube transcripts.

So a thorough video about your product may work as a source. Even without a blog post.

To check your own YouTube mentions, read the transcripts of the videos that rank for your prompts. Search each one for your brand name. Scribiz returns a transcript from a link. It is free for videos up to 15 minutes, with no account. We make it too.

$49 report

Does AI name you?

See if AI mentions your brand. Then get the pages to fix.

Your website

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Check one question freeHow it works

What's the best AI SEO tracker for a startup?

Most answers name Semrush. You aren't cited.

Ask ChatGPT

Build presence where your buyers actually research

LLMs don't all look in the same places.

Your job isn't to be everywhere. It's to be visible where the engine your buyers use looks.

Where each engine looks

Ahrefs publishes a monthly list of the most-cited sites per engine. Brand Radar data, US queries, all topics.

(Percentages are each site's share of the top 50 sources' citations.)

• Reddit is first for ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini. And for Google AI Mode, where YouTube is a close second.
• YouTube leads AI Overviews.
• Amazon leads Copilot.

This covers all topics. So check your own category.

Third-party mentions matter more than you think

Same 75,000-brand study:

• Branded web mentions: 0.66 to 0.71 correlation with AI visibility.
• Link metrics (backlinks, URL rating): very weak.

Backlinks still matter for Google. For AI answers, what others say about your brand looks like the stronger signal.

A Reddit commenter put it well: treat LLM SEO like PR.

Follow the citations

Run your buyers' prompts in the engines they use. Write down which pages each engine cites.

Then work on those pages.

• Reddit keeps showing up? Join the thread.
• Editorial sites dominate? Invest in PR.
• YouTube surfaces? Make the video.

Check each engine. They cite different pages.

• "Best CRM for startups": 20 pages cited. 18 by one engine only.
• "Best CRM software": 24 pages. 20 by one engine only.

On that generic prompt, all six pages ChatGPT cited were vendor pages (HubSpot, Pipedrive, Salesforce and Zoho). All ten pages Perplexity cited were third-party sites, like G2, PCMag and Zapier.

Patterns shift with model updates. So keep the habit. Not the list.

What to skip and what Google says

Google's guide to generative AI features, last updated 10 July 2026, has a mythbusting section. Tactics you can ignore.

One warning. It covers Google Search, AI Overviews and AI Mode only.

"Google ignores it" doesn't prove "ChatGPT ignores it".

Several LLM SEO guides tell you to add an llms.txt file.

OpenAI's and Perplexity's own docs sites publish one. As an index for agents. That's a different job.

I wouldn't spend a week on it.

How to measure LLM SEO

Four numbers.

• Mention rate: the share of your tracked prompts where the answer names you. 50 prompts, 20 name you: 40%.
• Citation rate: the share where an answer links to one of your pages.
• Position and sentiment: where you're named in the answer. And how it describes you.
• Share of voice: your mentions out of all brand mentions across the prompt set.

Split each one by engine. An average hides that ChatGPT may name you while Gemini doesn't.

Google gives you one report. Search Console has a Generative AI performance report. Your impressions in AI Overviews and AI Mode, by page, country and device. All websites have it since 31 August 2026.

It shows nothing for ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini or Copilot.

For those, you run the prompts.

Start by hand. 10 prompts. Three engines. To see one answer first, use the free AI Visibility Checker. Log who is named and which URLs are cited:

prompt,engine,named,position,cited_urls,note

One caveat from Google's guide: no third-party tool has access to its internal ranking or AI systems. That holds for ours too. A scan shows what each engine says when asked. Not why.

Or let a tool run them. We built AI SEO Tracker for that. The dedicated page is the LLM rank tracker.

$49, once. Up to 50 prompts written from your site. You confirm them. Daily for 7 days, on ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot and Google AI Overviews. One brand.

You get mentions, citations, your position in the answer, competitor gaps, each engine's cited sources and a prioritized action plan.

It doesn't scan Google AI Mode, Claude, Grok, DeepSeek or Meta AI.

Real scans are on the leaderboard. The metrics in depth: how to measure brand visibility in AI search.

Your LLM SEO checklist

1. Let the search crawlers in. Allow OAI-SearchBot and PerplexityBot. Check your CDN. Confirm your key copy is in the HTML.
2. Describe your brand the same way everywhere. Same category and facts on your site, profiles and listings.
3. List the prompts your buyers use, with context. Run them in the engines your buyers use.
4. Write one honest page per real segment. And get on the lists and threads those engines cite.
5. Earn real mentions. Lists, Reddit, YouTube. Skip bought ones.
6. Re-run the prompts monthly. Log what changed.

Questions about LLM SEO

What is the name for LLM SEO

GEO, AEO, LLMO and AI SEO name the same work.

Google's guide says that from its side, AEO and GEO work is still SEO. The naming post compares the terms.

Is SEO dead now that AI answers questions

No.

Google's guide says SEO best practices still apply to its AI features. They're rooted in its core ranking and quality systems.

For ChatGPT and Perplexity, rankings alone won't carry you.