Many organisations approach GEO the way they approached SEO: by optimising only their own site. That doesn’t work. AI systems pull their information from a much broader ecosystem — and what sits outside your own site often weighs more than what you publish yourself.
Owned vs Earned vs Learned content
Owned content
What you publish yourself: your website, blog, product pages, downloads. Full control, but also full responsibility. In AI answers we rarely see owned content as the sole basis for a judgement — the pattern looks as if independent sources weigh heavier, though nobody can establish that weighting from the outside. It would be logical: you have a commercial interest.
Earned content
What others write about you: press articles, interviews, reviews, sector reports, guest posts. This is where AI systems form their ‘independent’ picture of your brand. This is where the independent picture of your brand is formed — and in our measurements, AI answers reach back to it strikingly often.
Learned content
What AI systems themselves generate about you, based on what they have processed. This is what users read in their AI answers. You cannot directly steer learned content — only indirectly, through the sources the AI system uses.
Which external platforms are most valuable?
Wikipedia and Wikidata
A strong anchor for entity building, where it is attainable — and it is far from attainable for everyone. It is not a precondition: plenty of brands are perfectly present in AI answers without a Wikipedia article. Note: Wikipedia editing is strict and independent. You can’t simply create an article — your organisation has to meet notability criteria.
Comparison sites and review platforms
For consumer-facing products: Trustpilot, Google Reviews, sector-specific platforms. For B2B: G2, Capterra, sector-specific comparison sites. These platforms are public material: testable as a retrieval source per channel, and as training data different per provider and unverifiable.
Sector publications and trade press
Independent publications in your sector contribute disproportionately to your authority. One substantive article in a relevant trade publication can outweigh a stack of your own blog posts.
Press releases and journalistic coverage
Not as press-release-on-press-release, but as a starting point for journalistic attention. What journalists write about you is earned content of the strongest kind.
How do you influence third-party narratives?
- Invest in PR that leads to substantive coverage, not PR that repeats product announcements
- Work actively with sector publications on editorial content, not just advertising
- Monitor and respond to reviews — not only to steer sentiment but also to correct factual errors
- Make sure your Wikipedia article (if it exists) is factually correct and up-to-date, but don’t edit it yourself
- Participate in sector research and reports — let your data be used by neutral sources
The link with PR
PR and GEO are no longer separate disciplines. A PR strategy not aligned with how AI systems process content misses half the picture. And a GEO strategy that doesn’t work with PR will never build the off-site authority needed for structural visibility.