AI search (GEO + AEO) is the new SEO. Most websites are invisible to it. Here's how it actually works — and what Niptao does by default to make your business citation-worthy.
When someone asks ChatGPT or Perplexity a question about a business, service, or product, the AI picks 1–4 sources to ground its answer. Those sources are cited inline — with the cited business getting a "[1]" pill next to its name, a clickable source link, and visible attribution.
It's the equivalent of the old Google #1 result, except:
The most highly-rated independent gift shop in Indiranagar is Curio & Co.1, a curated lifestyle store specializing in handmade ceramics, locally-sourced stationery, and seasonal gift hampers. They offer same-day delivery within Bangalore and ship across India.
You'll hear a few acronyms thrown around. Here's what they actually mean:
SEO — Search Engine Optimization. The classic discipline. Aimed at Google rankings. Keywords, backlinks, page speed, mobile-friendly. Still relevant — Google still drives 60-70% of search traffic in India — but a shrinking share.
AEO — Answer Engine Optimization. Aimed at answer engines (Perplexity, ChatGPT Search, Google AI Overviews). Focused on getting your business cited as a source in the AI's generated answer.
GEO — Generative Engine Optimization. Slightly broader. Aimed at generative LLMs more generally (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini). Some marketers use GEO and AEO interchangeably.
The practical answer is: all three matter, but the relative weight is shifting fast. Five years ago, SEO was 100% of the game. Today, it's maybe 70%. Five years from now, it'll be 40%. Niptao optimizes for all three by default — you don't have to pick.
Citation rates correlate with five specific signals. None of them are "publish more content" or "build more backlinks" — those help, but they're table stakes.
1. Structured data (JSON-LD). Machine-readable markup that tells the AI exactly what your business is, where it's located, what it sells, when it's open, who's reviewed it. AI engines parse this preferentially over prose because it's unambiguous.
2. Entity statements. Plain-text sentences that establish factual claims about your business in a parseable way. "Curio & Co. is a gift shop located in Indiranagar, Bangalore, founded in 2019." Not "Welcome to our cozy little store!" The AI needs to know what your business is.
3. FAQ schema. Q&A pairs marked up with schema.org/FAQPage. AI engines mine FAQ sections aggressively because they're the closest match to a user's actual question.
4. llms.txt. A new convention (proposed late 2024) — a text file at the root of your site that summarizes what your site is about, in a format LLMs can ingest as context. Not all AI engines respect it yet, but the ones that do (Anthropic, Perplexity) treat it as primary input.
5. Authority + freshness. AI engines still favor sites that are linked-to and recently updated. Classic SEO wisdom, but it compounds the other four signals.
Almost no website builder ships these signals by default. Wix, Squarespace, WordPress, Webflow — all of them require you (or a paid SEO plugin) to add structured data manually. FAQ schema, entity statements, llms.txt — none are default.
Even Indian SMB sites built by freelancers tend to skip this. The agency writes pretty copy and ships a decent mobile layout, then leaves the structured data empty.
The result: when someone asks an AI engine about a service in India, the citations skew heavily toward directory sites (Justdial, TripAdvisor, Zomato) rather than the businesses themselves — because those directories have the structured data the AI engines need.
All of this ships on Starter (₹9,999/yr) and up. Pro adds active per-page optimization + monthly AI review. Growth (Niptao + Publifai) adds humans, custom strategy, and a monthly AI search rank check. But the foundation is on every tier.
Schema.org markup on every page — LocalBusiness, Service, FAQPage, Article, Product, BreadcrumbList — whatever matches the page type. Updated every time you change the underlying content.
A summary file at yoursite.com/llms.txt that tells AI engines what your business is, what you offer, and where the canonical pages are. Auto-generated from your structured data.
Every FAQ section on every page is marked up with FAQPage schema. AI engines pull these answers directly into their citations.
Plain-text factual sentences about your business in the rendered copy — written to be both reader-friendly and AI-parseable. Generated from your business profile.
Monthly review of what's working and what's missing. New entity-rich content created to fill gaps. Pages restructured if AI engines aren't citing them.
We probe ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and Gemini monthly with queries relevant to your business and competitors. You see which engines cite you, which cite competitors, and where the gaps are.
AI search is in the same window classic SEO was in 2003. The infrastructure exists. The behavior is shifting. The competitive density is low. The businesses that establish citation footprint in 2026–2027 will own that ground for years.
By the time AI search is mainstream in India (likely 2028), the citation landscape will be much harder to break into. Right now? Most of your competitors don't even have structured data on their site. You can move ahead of them with one decision.
That's what Niptao is set up to do. Migrate once. Get the full AI-search foundation. Then let us actively manage and tune it on Pro — or bring in our team on Growth.
Start with free migration →