30 Seconds Summary
- I analyzed 51 German GEO agency websites to determine whether GEO is a distinct service or merely SEO in disguise.
- Most GEO services rely heavily on typical SEO approaches in their messaging (keywords, backlinks, technical SEO), which may indicate re-labeling rather than true LLM marketing innovation.
- Many agencies are rebranding SEO as GEO, as companies adapt to the emergence of ChatGPT and similar tools, seeking to optimize for LLM visibility. Ironically, a company’s LLM visibility will likely benefit from good SEO practices.
If you grew up watching Scooby-Doo, you’ll remember the formula: a creepy ghost or monster wreaks havoc, only for the gang to pull off the mask at the end and reveal it was just a regular human all along.
Or how the comedian Tim Minchin put it 
:
“If you must watch telly, you should watch Scooby-Doo.
That show was so cool,
Because every time there was a church with a ghoul
Or a ghost in a school,
They looked beneath the mask, and what was inside?
The […] janitor or the dude who ran the water slide!
Because throughout history
Every mystery
Ever solved has turned out to be
NOT MAGIC!”
Mark Williams-Cook’s meme effectively captures the essential question of SEO versus GEO: Is GEO just SEO in disguise?
AI Mode rolling out in UK today. To quote @methode.bsky.social from #searchcentral talking about AI Search: 🗨️ "Simply use normal SEO practices. You don't need GEO, LLMO or anything else."
— Mark Williams-Cook (@markwilliamscook.com) 29. Juli 2025 um 12:39
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Since LLMs emerged, many acronyms have surfaced – LLMO, GEO, GAIO, AIO, and AEO. They all describe the optimization of visibility in LLMs such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini. At one point, the GEO hype began to dominate discussions on LinkedIn. That was when I started to wonder: How is GEO really different from SEO? And what exactly are GEO agencies offering to address the changing user behavior?
To answer these questions, I decided to test a hypothesis: GEO agencies primarily use established SEO best practices while leveraging the hype around LLMs.
In this article, I’ll share findings from my analysis of 51 German-speaking GEO agencies.
Methodology
I started by screening all pages manually, but I wanted something more robust. That’s why I conducted a text-mining analysis of agencies advertising their services as “GEO Agentur” in Germany.
I compiled 51 landing pages from agencies ranking for “GEO Agentur.” To maintain objectivity, I anonymized the sources, labeling them as 1.html, 2.html, and so on. I also got rid of agencies ranking for Local Marketing keywords (“Geomarketing”). With the help of ChatGPT, I used BeautifulSoup to parse the raw HTML, removing scripts, styles, iframes, and navigation elements to focus solely on the main content. The text was lowercased and normalized (removing extra whitespace and standardizing terms).
I built three custom lexicons of keywords:
- SEO terms (120): Classic search optimization vocabulary such as keywords, backlinks, Core Web Vitals, hreflang, sitemap, Content Marketing, Internal Linking.
- GEO terms (100): AI-driven search concepts like geo ranking, llmo, GPT-5, RAG, embeddings, prompt engineering, AI Overviews.
- Marketing buzzwords (60): Common agency lingo like innovativ, maßgeschneidert, führend, disruptive, growth marketing, and customer journey.
Each page was scanned for occurrences of these terms using a fuzzy keyword search.
I created a Piggybacking Score and a SEO Tactics Score: The Piggybacking Score reveals whether the vocabulary skews toward SEO. By incorporating the SEO Tactics Score, it clarifies whether an agency is actively promoting traditional SEO services alongside GEO language. A page with a low Piggybacking Score but a high SEO Tactics Score suggests that while GEO is mentioned, the methods are primarily SEO-driven. This would indicate rebranding rather than a genuine GEO offer. Both are important, as agencies might also discuss the differences between SEO and GEO, leading to existing SEO terms on the landing page.
Piggybacking Score
The Piggybacking Score indicates how much of a page’s language remains SEO-focused. A value close to 1 means it’s almost entirely composed of SEO terms. High scores reveal agencies that primarily rebrand SEO as GEO.
Formula: SEO terms ÷ (SEO + GEO terms)
SEO Tactics Score
This score measures how many of the eight classic SEO categories a page addresses as a service, from keyword research to link building and analytics. A high score indicates that the page heavily relies on the full SEO playbook.
Categories include:
- Keyword research
- Link building & digital PR
- Technical SEO (Core Web Vitals, sitemaps, robots.txt, schema)
- On-page content optimization (content marketing, landing page, E-E-A-T, internal linking)
- Local SEO (Google My Business, NAP consistency, local pack)
- International SEO (multilingual SEO, hreflang)
- Analytics & tracking (Google Analytics, Search Console, CTR, ROI)
- SEA/PPC overlap (Google Ads, AdWords, pay-per-click)
By including SEA/PPC references (terms like Google Ads, AdWords, PPC, pay-per-click), the score captures when a GEO agency is actually just broadening the old SEO/SEM mix rather than offering distinct GEO practices. A score close to 1.0 indicates that the site references nearly the entire SEO toolkit.
Formula = (Number of SEO services mentioned on the page) ÷ 8
Findings
Most agencies relied heavily on SEO terminology. The average Piggybacking Score was around 0.5, indicating that roughly 50% of the optimization-related vocabulary came from SEO.
The SEO Tactics Score reflected similar results. On average, pages referenced 5 out of the 8 classic SEO tactic categories. Some agencies scored as high as 0.9, covering nearly the entire traditional SEO toolbox on the landing page.
| File | Words | SEO Hits / 1000 Words | GEO Hits / 1000 Words | Buzzwords / 1000 Words | Piggybacking Score | SEO Tactics Score |
| 01.html | 4152 | 40 | 63 | 22 | 0,4 | 0,5 |
| 02.html | 2148 | 20 | 60 | 27 | 0,3 | 0,5 |
| 03.html | 783 | 17 | 55 | 37 | 0,2 | 0,5 |
| 04.html | 2808 | 23 | 55 | 31 | 0,3 | 0,6 |
| 05.html | 1862 | 26 | 54 | 19 | 0,3 | 0,6 |
| 06.html | 3143 | 23 | 57 | 35 | 0,3 | 0,9 |
| 07.html | 1199 | 14 | 47 | 38 | 0,2 | 0,5 |
| 08.html | 2911 | 21 | 44 | 33 | 0,3 | 0,8 |
| 09.html | 734 | 30 | 55 | 20 | 0,4 | 0,4 |
| 10.html | 1889 | 22 | 30 | 50 | 0,4 | 0,6 |
| 11.html | 1889 | 22 | 30 | 50 | 0,4 | 0,6 |
| 12.html | 2327 | 34 | 48 | 27 | 0,4 | 0,6 |
| 13.html | 1866 | 32 | 26 | 23 | 0,5 | 0,9 |
| 14.html | 2582 | 37 | 43 | 23 | 0,5 | 0,6 |
| 16.html | 2121 | 33 | 51 | 16 | 0,4 | 0,9 |
| 17.html | 1795 | 54 | 16 | 33 | 0,8 | 0,5 |
| 18.html | 1158 | 19 | 54 | 23 | 0,3 | 0,4 |
| 19.html | 1641 | 25 | 23 | 20 | 0,5 | 0,6 |
| 20.html | 1947 | 79 | 44 | 39 | 0,6 | 0,8 |
| 21.html | 5846 | 38 | 42 | 36 | 0,5 | 0,9 |
| 22.html | 2955 | 26 | 36 | 20 | 0,4 | 0,9 |
| 23.html | 3241 | 29 | 48 | 33 | 0,4 | 0,8 |
| 24.html | 3709 | 36 | 55 | 32 | 0,4 | 0,6 |
| 25.html | 3304 | 62 | 36 | 21 | 0,6 | 0,8 |
| 26.html | 754 | 66 | 60 | 49 | 0,5 | 0,6 |
| 27.html | 3676 | 17 | 53 | 16 | 0,2 | 0,8 |
| 28.html | 3028 | 32 | 63 | 26 | 0,3 | 0,8 |
| 29.html | 1692 | 28 | 39 | 22 | 0,4 | 0,6 |
| 30.html | 2882 | 25 | 46 | 40 | 0,3 | 0,6 |
| 31.html | 2467 | 75 | 31 | 34 | 0,7 | 0,6 |
| 32.html | 2035 | 29 | 49 | 36 | 0,4 | 0,6 |
| 33.html | 2576 | 19 | 43 | 29 | 0,3 | 0,4 |
| 34.html | 1474 | 17 | 59 | 27 | 0,2 | 0,4 |
| 35.html | 3435 | 39 | 59 | 23 | 0,4 | 0,9 |
| 36.html | 3435 | 39 | 59 | 23 | 0,4 | 0,9 |
| 37.html | 2681 | 41 | 39 | 22 | 0,5 | 0,9 |
| 38.html | 1631 | 25 | 86 | 26 | 0,2 | 0,6 |
| 39.html | 851 | 68 | 53 | 38 | 0,6 | 0,8 |
| 40.html | 453 | 7 | 49 | 24 | 0,1 | 0,1 |
| 41.html | 2217 | 31 | 63 | 34 | 0,3 | 0,5 |
| 42.html | 455 | 20 | 48 | 22 | 0,3 | 0,3 |
| 43.html | 1113 | 22 | 55 | 18 | 0,3 | 0,1 |
| 44.html | 1272 | 24 | 46 | 17 | 0,3 | 0,6 |
| 45.html | 2663 | 41 | 54 | 29 | 0,4 | 1,0 |
| 46.html | 1501 | 13 | 42 | 11 | 0,2 | 0,4 |
| 47.html | 1501 | 13 | 42 | 11 | 0,2 | 0,4 |
| 48.html | 950 | 25 | 35 | 24 | 0,4 | 0,6 |
| 49.html | 1622 | 49 | 25 | 36 | 0,7 | 0,5 |
| 50.html | 1067 | 53 | 47 | 22 | 0,5 | 0,6 |
| 51.html | 603 | 30 | 30 | 23 | 0,5 | 0,5 |
| 52.html | 2091 | 42 | 58 | 31 | 0,4 | 0,8 |
Marketing language was also prevalent. Several agencies used 20 or more buzzwords per 1,000 words, often outnumbering substantive mentions of GEO concepts. Terms like innovativ, führend, and maßgeschneidert appeared frequently across many sites.
There was a moderate positive correlation (r ≈ 0.39) between the Piggybacking Score and the SEO Tactics Score: the more an agency relied on SEO terms, the more SEO tactics it also covered.
Combining the Piggybacking Score and SEO Tactics Score revealed a clearer pattern. Many agencies that mentioned GEO terms often did so only superficially. If a page had a high SEO Tactics Score, it indicated that the underlying services remained traditional SEO. They discuss GEO, but their service descriptions are still based on SEO methods.
In short, the data shows that most agencies marketing themselves as GEO specialists are still focused on typical SEO methods. Only a few sites prioritized GEO terminology, while the majority continue to rely on established SEO strategies presented under a new label.
Discussion
I believe that GEO is a real concept, as Danny Goodwin pointed out : “Generative Engine Optimization is an attempt to describe the reality of how search is changing.” In general, optimizing for platforms, including SEO, has drastically evolved since I started my growth career in 2014. The constant change in SEO has been the one aspect that has remained consistent.
Most agencies, at least in Germany, seem to mainly apply SEO tactics to piggyback a hype – which is rational and probably makes sense from a business-perspective. I’d even argue that most service providers know this; they’re just adapting to the new reality of GEO demand in the market. Companies want to optimize for ChatGPT, and agencies are providing that. Offering SEO services, even when the customer asks for GEO services, is probably the right approach because good SEO will increase visibility, including in ChatGPT and similar platforms. So, as long as the agencies are applying SEO best practices, there’s no one to blame, because both parties will be happy in the end.
The data suggests that GEO as a service category is still in its early stages. Agencies are clearly aware of the demand around generative AI and search, but most have not yet translated this into distinct service offerings. Instead, they rely on established SEO frameworks, adjusting only their language to include terms like “Generative Engine Optimization” or “AI search.”
The Piggybacking Score highlights that GEO is rarely the dominant theme. Even when agencies use GEO-related terminology, the content is usually framed in SEO language. This indicates that GEO is being used primarily as a marketing hook rather than as the foundation of new methodologies.
The SEO Tactics Score reinforces this view. A significant portion of agencies continues to promote keyword research, link building, and technical SEO, which are effective in classical search environments but have limited direct relevance in LLM-driven systems. Where GEO is mentioned, it often lacks concrete practices, suggesting that the operational know-how is either kept secret or not yet developed.
A lot of the agencies demonstrate rebranding behavior: they mention GEO but at the same time present nearly the full SEO playbook. The good news: The SEO playbook is probably also what helps you with LLM visibility.
I’d argue that agencies are rationally responding to a market trend and repositioning their existing expertise around a new term that has gained attention. This kind of piggybacking is a common response to hype cycles in digital marketing. The responsibility lies with companies to understand the re-labeling. The good news: Ironically, the SEO playbooks and tactics will probably have a positive impact on LLM visibility.
The prevalence of buzzword-heavy content could be indicating that some agencies are prioritizing positioning over substance. High buzzword density, combined with high Piggybacking and Tactics Scores, could signal a focus on marketing language rather than methodological innovation.
I’m confident that the importance of optimization for visibility in LLMs will increase, but perhaps we can eliminate the acronyms, as Rand Fishkin suggested : “Seriously, please stop with the new acronyms. It’s still SEO: Search Everywhere Optimization.”
Aleyda Solís made a similar point : “It doesn’t matter how you call it and want to brand it, if SEO/GEO/AIO/etc.: We will continue optimizing the platform the audience uses.”
Remember: It’s not magic; it’s just a janitor who is upset about not getting a raise from the school’s principal. Or in other words: Create helpful content for real users and distribute it.
Sources
- Goodwin, D. (2025, September 3). Yes, GEO is happening. Search Engine Land. Retrieved from https://searchengineland.com/geo-already-happened-461549
- Fishkin, R. (2025, May 29). Seriously, please stop with the new acronyms. It’s still SEO: Search Everywhere Optimization. SparkToro. Retrieved from https://sparktoro.com/blog/its-still-seo-search-everywhere-optimization/
- Mark Williams-Cook. (2025, July 29). https://bsky.app/profile/markwilliamscook.com/post/3lv3w54jubs2l
- Minchin, T. (2009). Storm [Video]. Ready For This? (Hammersmith Apollo, London). YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIWj3tI-DXg
- Solis, A. (2025). https://www.linkedin.com/posts/aleyda_ai-bros-seo-is-dead-because-people-are-activity-7371075710423023616-8M0R
