citelens-geo

GEO with Citelens

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is the AI-search counterpart to SEO: instead of ranking blue links, the goal is to be the brand an AI assistant names and cites when a buyer asks it for a recommendation. Citelens measures this and closes the loop to improving it.

The core idea

Buyers increasingly ask ChatGPT/Claude/Perplexity/Gemini and see Google AI Overviews instead of scrolling ten links. Your visibility is now split: half is classic rankings, half is whether the model brings you up at all. GEO measures and moves the second half.

How Citelens scores it

The pipeline is deliberately simple and explainable (no black-box scoring):

1. Prompt generation — from the brand's topics (categories), generate realistic buyer-intent questions ("What are the best tools for X?"). The brand name is never injected into prompts — the whole point is to measure whether engines mention it unprompted. Seeding the name would corrupt the signal.
2. Run across engines — each prompt goes to every engine through one interface returning { text, citations }. Engines run live when their API key is set, otherwise a deterministic mock.
3. Parse each answer (deterministic string/URL analysis):
   • Brand mentioned — is the brand named in the answer body?
   • Brand cited — is the brand's own domain among the cited sources?
   • Competitors mentioned — which tracked rivals were named?
   • Cited sources — which domains, classified by type (review, forum, media, social, marketplace, official, other).
4. Metrics:
   • Visibility rate = share of answers where the brand was named or cited.
   • Share of voice = brand mentions ÷ (brand + all competitor mentions).
   • Citation rate = answers citing the brand's own domain.
   • Per-engine visibility and source-type mix.
   • Sentiment (is the AI recommending or warning people off?) is a separate LLM pass over brand-mentioned answers.

Why source types matter

AI answers are grounded in sources. If the engines that mention your category keep citing G2, Reddit, and a few media reviews — and you're absent from those — that is why you're invisible. The fix is usually getting represented in the source types the models actually pull from, not tweaking your own site copy.

The action loop (what makes it more than a dashboard)

For every query where the brand is invisible, Citelens diagnoses the gap (who ranked or got cited instead, from what source type) and drafts a concrete fix — rather than only reporting the deficit.

Practical advice when a user asks "how do I show up in AI answers?"

• Probe the real buyer-intent questions first — don't guess. Use /citelens:check.
• Look at which sources the engines cite for your category, then earn presence there (reviews on G2/Capterra, relevant Reddit/forum threads, media coverage).
• Make your own pages answer the question directly and citably (clear claims, comparisons, structured data) so grounded search can quote them.
• Re-measure across engines — visibility differs a lot between Gemini (Google grounding), Perplexity, and ChatGPT.

To measure a brand now, use /citelens:check. To run the full dashboard with the action loop, use /citelens:setup.