GEO isn't working
Content has shipped, some technical work is done, and citations still haven't moved. This almost always traces back to one of a handful of specific, checkable causes — not a sign the discipline itself doesn't work.
By Nithish Govindasamy · Updated August 2026
Check these, in order
- Crawler access — confirm search-time AI bots aren't blocked in robots.txt. This alone explains a large share of "nothing is working" cases.
- Entity clarity — confirm Organization schema and sameAs links exist and are consistent with third-party sources.
- Content specificity — confirm content answers exact buyer questions rather than covering the topic generically.
- Time elapsed — engines re-ground faster than classic search re-indexes, but a change still needs at least a few weeks to show up in tracking.
Frequently asked questions
- What's the single most common reason GEO work doesn't show results?
- Blocked crawler access — if the search-time bots (OAI-SearchBot, PerplexityBot, Claude-User) can't reach the pages, no amount of content or schema work matters, because the engine simply can't read it. This is worth checking first, before anything else.
- What's the second most common reason?
- Overinvesting in llms.txt while underinvesting in entity signals — llms.txt has a genuinely small measured effect on AI crawler behavior, while Organization schema and sameAs links have a much larger one. A lot of "GEO work" that isn't working is time spent on the wrong lever.