A couple of weeks ago I got excited about running an experiment to reach the top for the query “Best SEO specialist in Odessa” in Google AI Overview. Odessa is a city with a population of over 1 million, with competition among SEOs consisting of more than 40 companies and hundreds of SEO specialists.
To begin with, let’s разобраться what these trendy GEO, AEO, and AI Overview actually are.
- GEO (Generative Engine Optimization): Optimization of content for generative AI engines (such as ChatGPT, Perplexity) so that it gets cited in synthesized answers. Focuses on naturalness, authority, and structure for AI models.
- AEO (Answer Engine Optimization): Optimization for “answer engines” (featured snippets, knowledge panels in Google), where the goal is to provide a direct answer to a user’s question without requiring a click. Emphasizes Q&A formats and structured data.
- AI Overview (Google): A Google Search feature (since 2024) that generates a brief AI summary at the top of results. It automatically summarizes relevant content from top pages for complex queries.
GEO is broader than AEO, while AI Overview is part of them.
Initially, it looked like this (the laptop screenshot wasn’t saved, only the mobile SERP remains):
As we can see, there’s a major issue here — AI Overview has a different intent and recommends companies instead of SEO specialists. The same issue was observed in ChatGPT. Search engines were persistently unwilling to recommend individual specialists.
Publishing rankings
To reach the top, I created a couple dozen rankings of the best SEO specialists in Odessa, as well as separate articles aimed at improving my visibility in search results and describing me as a highly experienced specialist focused on website promotion and EEAT.
All articles were generated, and the rankings included SEO specialists from Odessa already known to Google and ChatGPT. This is important, as it is much harder to promote fictional entities. The rankings varied, sometimes featuring different names, but the key point was that I was listed as the best everywhere.
Within a couple of weeks, I reached the top:
In incognito mode:
Despite the fact that almost no rankings were published in Ukrainian, I also ranked at the top for Ukrainian queries.
During the process, I discovered that the SERP is not static:
- Results sometimes depended on whether I was logged into Google
- Incognito results sometimes differed
- There were differences when using a VPN or a different geo location
Sometimes Google’s AI Overview would again show a list of companies instead of SEO specialists.
What about other chatbots: Gemini, ChatGPT, AI Alisa
In Gemini, I’m clearly at the top
In ChatGPT, things are much worse — there are too few sources to shift the intent, but after follow-up queries, I still appear at the top.
Example in Ukrainian.
I couldn’t achieve top results in Russian.
And finally — all of this also works in Yandex, here’s a recommendation from AI Alisa:
To get into Yandex, I generated a couple of videos and added an article to VK.
Update in 2026: Deepseek indexed the link in the Gemini post and now cites this page and ranks me at the top for the query.
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