GEO guide for Romania 2026: how to get recommended by AI

GEO (Generative Engine Optimization), meaning optimization for AI assistants, is about making your business easy to understand, verify and cite. For ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity or Google's AI-generated summaries (AI Overviews) to recommend you, you need three things: a clear business identity, content that answers questions directly, and outside sources that confirm the same details.

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Updated: October 2026
Reading time: about 12 minutes
Author: The NORTHFORM team
Who it's for: Businesses in Romania that want AI assistants to recommend them

In short

AI assistants answer in a few sentences and cite only a handful of sources. GEO helps you be one of them.
Models pick sources they can find, understand and verify: indexed pages, businesses that are easy to identify, information confirmed by several websites.
GEO does not replace SEO. It starts from the same foundations and adds a clear business identity, structured data, content that is easy to quote, and monthly measurement on a fixed set of questions.
For a business in Romania, the first steps are: Google Business Profile, structured data, answer pages, access for AI crawlers, and the same contact details everywhere.
You measure results by running the same set of questions every month. The trend matters, not any single answer.

What GEO is

GEO stands for Generative Engine Optimization. The term was popularized by a research paper published on arXiv in 2023, which studied how a website can become more visible in the answers of generative engines.

A generative engine does not give you ten links. It gives you a written answer built from several sources, and cites a few of them. Examples: ChatGPT with search, Gemini, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews and AI Mode.

For a business, this changes the moment it enters the customer's decision. The customer no longer compares five websites. They read a recommendation and often call the business named in it straight away. More and more searches end with a generated answer and no click at all.

GEO is everything you do so that your business shows up correctly in that answer: named, described without errors and, ideally, with your own website cited as a source. The terms used in this guide are explained in the GEO glossary.

You will also come across other names for very similar things. AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) focuses on direct answers, including in voice assistants. Others talk about "AI SEO" or "LLM optimization". The name matters less than what you actually do: a business that is easy to identify, content that is easy to quote, and honest measurement.

Why does it matter now, in Romania? Because AI assistants already answer in Romanian, including questions about local businesses. In many fields, few businesses are deliberately working toward these answers. A clinic, a repair shop or a distributor that gets its data and content in order now faces less competition than it will in a year or two.

How models choose their sources

Nobody outside the companies that build the models knows exactly how each answer is put together. What we can say with confidence comes from official documentation and from the way these systems work. Three mechanisms matter.

1. Finding information (retrieval)

When a question calls for current or local information, the assistant searches the web in real time and reads a few pages before answering. This process is called retrieval. If your page cannot be found, accessed or read, it cannot be cited either.

Google says explicitly that AI Overviews and AI Mode may use a technique called "query fan-out": they split the question into several searches on subtopics and gather sources for each one. Google also states that there are no special requirements for appearing there beyond being indexed and eligible to be shown with a snippet. The details are in Google's documentation on AI features in Search.

The practical takeaway: a page that answers a subtopic precisely can be chosen even if it does not rank first for the general question.

2. How the system understands your business (the entity)

An entity is something a system can identify without ambiguity: a business, a person, a place, a product. Models and search engines try to connect every piece of information they find to the right entity.

If your business appears under three different names, with two addresses and contradictory descriptions, the connection is weak. If the name, address, phone number, services and official profiles are the same everywhere, and the website declares them through structured data, the system has less to guess.

3. Confirmation from several sources

An assistant that recommends a business needs more than the business's own website. It looks for confirmation: reviews, directories, press articles, industry listings, forums. When several independent sources say the same thing, the information becomes easier to use in an answer.

This is not a published rule with percentages. It follows from the way retrieval works: the more credible places your business information appears in, the more likely it is to be found and used.

How SEO and GEO differ

SEO and GEO start from the same foundation: a fast website that search engine bots (crawlers) can access, with useful content. What differs is the goal and the way results are measured.

Aspect	SEO	GEO
Goal	A good position in the list of results	A mention or a citation in the generated answer
Where you appear	Google and other traditional search engines	ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, AI Overviews, AI Mode
Unit of work	The keyword and the page	The full question and the business, as an entity
Main signals	Relevance, links, on-page experience	Clear identity, content that is easy to quote, confirmation from several sources
Content format	Pages optimized for one term	A direct answer up front, verifiable facts, FAQs
Measurement	Rankings, impressions, clicks	AI presence rate, citation rate, coverage across question types

In practice, you work on both at the same time. Much of the GEO work, such as structured data or clear pages for each service, also helps in traditional Google search.

The 3 pillars of GEO

Everything in a GEO project falls into one of three categories.

Business identity and structured data

State clearly who you are, what you do, where and for whom. Use the schema.org vocabulary, in JSON-LD format, for Organization or LocalBusiness, for services and for FAQs. Link the website to your official profiles with the sameAs property, which Google recommends in its Organization documentation.

Content that is easy to quote

Write pages a model can use without guessing. The direct answer comes in the first lines. Prices, timeframes and conditions are concrete. Every important service has its own page. The FAQs are the real questions customers ask, not ones invented for keywords.

Measurement

Without measurement, you don't know whether what you are doing works. Run a fixed set of questions through AI assistants every month and note when you appear. Our full method is described on the methodology page.

Checklist for a business in Romania

The order below is the one we use in our projects. Start with the first steps: they have the biggest effect for the least effort.

1. A complete Google Business Profile

For local businesses, Google Business Profile is one of the most important sources of information about the business. Choose the right primary category and secondary categories, add all your services, write a clear description, publish up-to-date opening hours and real photos. Answer questions and reviews.

2. Structured data on your website

Add JSON-LD for Organization or for the most specific LocalBusiness type (for example Dentist or MedicalClinic), for services and for FAQs. The data must match the visible text on the page. Validate the code in the Rich Results Test and the Schema Markup Validator. If you run a clinic, also read our article on structured data for clinics.

3. Answer pages for the important questions

An answer page deals with a single real customer question. The first paragraph answers it directly, in 40–60 words. Then come the details (steps, prices, conditions, timeframes) and a few FAQs. Start with the questions you already get by phone or email.

4. Real FAQs

On every service page, add 3–6 questions that customers actually ask, with answers of 2–4 sentences that make sense when read on their own. Since 2026, Google no longer shows FAQ rich results in Search, but the content is still useful for people and for the models that read the page.

5. Access for AI crawlers in robots.txt

Check that your robots.txt file does not accidentally block the bots that power search in AI assistants. The exact names, from the official documentation:

OpenAI: OAI-SearchBot for ChatGPT search and GPTBot for model training. Source: OpenAI's documentation on its bots.
Perplexity: PerplexityBot for indexing in Perplexity results. Source: Perplexity's documentation.
Anthropic: ClaudeBot for training, Claude-SearchBot for search and Claude-User for visits requested by users. Source: Anthropic's help page.
Google: Google-Extended is not a separate bot but a robots.txt token. It controls whether content is used to train Gemini models and to ground answers in sources (grounding), and it does not affect inclusion in Google Search. Source: Google's official list of crawlers.

If you block search bots such as OAI-SearchBot, PerplexityBot or Claude-SearchBot, your chances of being cited in those assistants drop. Blocking training bots is a separate business decision.

6. An llms.txt file, with realistic expectations

llms.txt is a proposal published in 2024 by Jeremy Howard: a Markdown file placed at the root of the website, with a summary and links to the important pages. It is not a standard. Google says you don't need special files for AI to appear in its features, and use of the file by the major providers is not confirmed. It costs little to have one, but don't rely on it. More in our article on llms.txt.

7. The same contact details everywhere (NAP)

NAP stands for name, address, phone. Use exactly the same form on your website, in Google Business Profile, on Facebook and LinkedIn, in directories and on invoices. Even small differences, such as "Str." instead of "Strada" or a different phone number, weaken the link between the information and your business.

8. A steady flow of reviews

Reviews are an outside source that AI assistants often consult for "what do you recommend" questions. Set up a simple system for asking every satisfied customer for a review, and reply to all of them, including the negative ones.

9. Mentions in local press and directories

Look for the places models already cite in your field: local guides, industry directories, regional news sites, professional associations. An accurate presence there adds one more confirmation. Run a few questions first and note which websites show up as sources.

We also offer the first steps on this list as fixed-price services: structured data, llms.txt and robots.txt, Google Business Profile, answer page.

How to measure results

For a quick start, there are two free tools: the GEO score, which shows what is missing from your foundation, and the AI question generator, which gives you a set of 10 questions to test every month.

Your Google rankings don't tell you whether AI assistants recommend you. You need separate measurement, done the same way every month.

Put together a fixed set of questions. Between 10 and 50 real questions, grouped by intent: recommendation, comparison, price, local.
Run them through several AI assistants. ChatGPT with search, Gemini, Perplexity, and Google wherever AI Overviews appear.
Note mentions and citations. A mention means the business name appears in the text. A citation means the business's website appears as a source.
Calculate the metrics. The AI presence rate is the number of questions where you appear, divided by the total number of questions and multiplied by 100. The citation rate is the number of citations of your website, divided by the total number of citations in the answers and multiplied by 100.
Repeat monthly and follow the trend. Answers vary from one run to the next, so a single measurement says very little.

A quick manual test is described step by step in our article how to check whether ChatGPT recommends your business. For Google, traffic from AI features is included in the Performance report in Search Console, under the Web search type.

Common mistakes

AI crawlers blocked without your knowledge. Some security plugins or CDN settings block bots you actually want to let in.
Structured data that doesn't match the page. Opening hours or a price in the JSON-LD that differ from what is shown on the page create confusion, not trust.
Generic content. Pages that say "quality services at affordable prices" have nothing worth quoting. Models prefer facts: what, how much, where, how long.
All services on one long page. Without separate pages, it is hard to be chosen for a precise question.
Contact details that vary from place to place. Old addresses in directories, different phone numbers, a name spelled several ways.
Expecting too much from llms.txt. It is a cheap extra, not a main lever.
Occasional measurement. A one-off test, or one with different questions every time, shows no trend.

How long it takes

There is no fixed timeframe, and anyone who promises you guaranteed citations within a set number of days is exaggerating. What we can say from the way these systems work:

Technical fixes, such as crawler access and structured data, take a few days. The effect depends on how quickly each bot comes back to the website.
The first changes in answers usually show up for very specific questions, a few weeks after implementation.
A stable presence for recommendation questions takes a few months to build, because it also depends on outside sources: reviews, mentions, directories.

That is why we work month by month and measure against the same set of questions. If you want to see where you are starting from, request the free GEO audit or see what a full GEO audit looks like.

GEO FAQs

You will find more explanations on our blog.

Does GEO replace SEO?

No. GEO starts from the same foundations as SEO: a fast, indexable website with useful content. It adds a clear business identity, structured data, content that is easy to quote, and measurement on a fixed set of questions. You work on both in parallel.

Do I need llms.txt to appear in ChatGPT?

It is not a requirement. llms.txt is a proposal, not a standard, and its use by the major providers is not confirmed. It matters more that search bots can access your website and that your pages answer questions clearly.

Which AI crawlers should I let into my website through robots.txt?

For visibility in AI assistant search, the ones that matter most are OAI-SearchBot (ChatGPT), PerplexityBot and Claude-SearchBot. GPTBot, ClaudeBot and the Google-Extended token concern model training and grounding answers in sources, and blocking them is a separate decision.

Does structured data guarantee a place in AI Overviews?

No. Google says there is no special schema markup for AI features and that appearing is not guaranteed. Structured data helps bots understand the business and the page clearly, but it must match the visible text.

Can I do GEO myself, without an agency?

Yes, you can do much of the checklist yourself: Google Business Profile, the same contact details everywhere, real FAQs, reviews. For structured data, robots.txt and systematic measurement, a specialist or one of our fixed-price services can help.

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