The future of search is citation, not clicks
For two decades, search has meant scanning 10 blue links and clicking.
But that era has come to a screeching halt.
We’re now in the “AI Answer Economy,” where people see a single consolidated AI answer. And people increasingly trust the answers they get.
This has created a new reality for marketers: It’s all about the citation, not the click. So, how do you make sure you’re part of the conversation?
From SEO to GEO
The fundamentals haven’t changed. Technical hygiene, structured data, and clear content architecture still determine how machines understand your brand. What has changed is where that understanding shows up.
GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation) builds on SEO’s foundation but shifts the objective. You’re no longer competing for clicks in a list of links; you’re competing for citations inside AI-generated answers.
Schema, E-E-A-T, and entity optimisation still underpin visibility. But the “north star” has moved: from ranking first to being referenced first. The goal now is to become the most cited, trusted, and relevant source in your category.
Three core shifts for GEO in the answer economy
While a comprehensive GEO strategy has several parts, here are three fundamental shifts in how you think about your content and authority.
Think in passages, not pages
For years, SEOs have obsessed over “the page.” We build a page, we optimise a page, we rank a page.
AI models don’t think this way. They deconstruct queries and retrieve information in chunks or passages. The AI evaluates these small, individual passages for how well they answer a specific sub-question.
What this means: a brilliant answer buried deep in a long paragraph will be skipped. Your content must be “vector-ready,” AKA broken into short, focused, self-contained blocks that can be understood and cited without the full-page context.
In this new world, the passage, not the page, earns the citation.
Build trust signals, not just links
Backlinks have been the currency of search authority for decades. They still matter, but AI has a much broader definition of “trust.”
LLMs learn from patterns of trust across the entire web. They reward sources that are credible, expert, and consistent.
What this means: your authority is now measured by more than just links. It includes:
- Expert consensus: are your credentialed experts cited in community forums like Reddit and Quora?
- Knowledge base consistency: does your brand information align across knowledge bases like Wikipedia and Wikidata?
- Community Content: is your brand, product, or service discussed positively in reviews and video content?
You must engineer these brand signals across the web, not just on your own site.
Measure answer SoV, not just clicks
If users get their answers directly from the AI, they have no reason to click on your link. This means traditional metrics like CTR, impressions, and even organic traffic will inevitably decline or become misleading.
What this means: you must adopt new KPIs. The most important new metric is Answer Share of Voice (Answer SoV).
This new measurement framework moves beyond rankings to track:
- Citation frequency: how often is your brand cited in AI answers for your most important topics?
- Citation Position: are you a primary source, or a casual mention?
- Entity Strength: how consistently is your brand recognised as an authority across all sources?
Tracking this shift is the only way to prove the ROI of your GEO efforts.
The future is cited
The shift from a list of links to a single, synthesised answer is jarring. It means brands have less shelf space and the stakes are higher than ever.
But this is not a time to abandon foundational SEO excellence. It’s time to sharpen the edge. By structuring content for machines, building trust signals across the web, and evolving your measurement, you can move from being invisible to being the most cited voice in your category.
Executing this is complex, but the framework is clear. At DEPT®, we’ve developed a comprehensive GEO auditing process and playbook to help our clients secure their visibility in the answer economy. If you’re worried your brand is becoming invisible, it’s time to build your roadmap.
