// GEO. AEO. LLM CITATIONS. BACKLINK AUTHORITY.
// EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO RANK IN AI-POWERED SEARCH.
6 GUIDES // 45 MIN READ // UPDATED FEB 2026
AI search is a fundamental shift in how people find information online. Instead of returning a list of blue links, AI-powered search engines — Google AI Overviews, Perplexity, Bing Copilot, ChatGPT Search — synthesize an answer directly from web sources. The sources they cite are the winners. Everyone else is invisible.
For SEO practitioners, this creates a new game with familiar rules. The underlying signals — authority, relevance, trust — are the same. But the output format demands higher precision: cleaner content structure, stronger authority signals, and a backlink profile that AI retrieval systems recognize as credible. This guide covers all of it.
Four disciplines. One goal: get cited.
Traditional SEO remains the prerequisite. Without crawlability, indexing, and baseline authority, no AI search strategy can work. Technical SEO, on-page optimization, and backlinks are the infrastructure layer.
READ: WHY BACKLINKS STILL MATTER →GEO is the practice of getting your content cited in AI-generated answers. It requires direct-answer content format, specific data points, authority signals, and structured markup.
READ: GEO EXPLAINED →AEO optimizes for featured snippets, People Also Ask, and AI Overview positions. FAQ schema, direct answer format, and strong E-E-A-T signals are its core tools.
READ: AEO PLAYBOOK →Getting ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity to cite your brand requires entity building: consistent mentions across authoritative sources, structured data, and backlinks that signal you're a real, recognized entity in your space.
READ: GET CITED BY AI →Read in order for a complete education. Or jump to what you need.
AI hasn't killed backlinks — it's made quality links more valuable than ever.
7 MIN READ →Traditional SEO got you blue links. GEO gets you into the answer itself.
8 MIN READ →Systematic brand entity building across authoritative web sources.
9 MIN READ →Featured snippets were chapter one. AI Overviews are the new chapter.
8 MIN READ →Two dominant link building tactics. Here's when to use each.
7 MIN READ →AI has raised the bar for link quality. Here's what a trustworthy profile looks like.
8 MIN READ →Every discipline in this guide — GEO, AEO, LLM recognition — depends on one upstream signal: authority. And authority is still built through backlinks. AI retrieval systems pull from the most authoritative sources available. Without a strong backlink profile, your content won't be retrieved, no matter how well it's structured.
This isn't a coincidence. It's architecture. AI search engines are built on the same web crawling infrastructure that powers traditional search. Backlinks tell crawlers which pages are worth prioritizing. Prioritized pages get retrieved. Retrieved pages get cited. The causal chain is direct.
The brands winning at AI search in 2026 are the ones who invested in quality link building 12-18 months ago. The brands who start now will be the winners in 2027.
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