Google just killed GEO. Good news for SMEs.

If you run an SME and for the last year or two you've been getting emails from "AEO consultants" or "GEO experts" trying to sell you €3,000-15,000 packages to "optimise your presence in AI search"… today is the day to open your inbox, delete them, and go back to real work.

A week ago Google published an official guide on AI search that, in an unusually direct tone for them, says: "GEO and AEO are still SEO". No change to the rules. No secret technology. No need to hire anything new.

In case you've lost track, over the last two years the marketing industry has filled up with new acronyms:

• GEO — Generative Engine Optimization
• AEO — Answer Engine Optimization
• LLMO — Large Language Model Optimization
• AIO — AI Overview Optimization

Each acronym comes with its own guru, its own courses, its own "certified experts". And, above all, its own inflated prices. Google's message this week pulls the rug out from under them.

What Google actually said.

The guide, published by the Google Search team, walks through four tactics the industry was selling as essential for showing up in AI-generated answers — and takes them apart one by one:

1. llms.txt — not needed.

Someone invented a format parallel to robots.txt that supposedly guides LLMs on which content to prioritise. Google is blunt: we don't read it. Not them, and — for now — not any other major search engine. It's a standard that wanted to be one; it didn't make it. If you've spent money on consultants who had you "prepare your llms.txt", you have every right to be annoyed.

2. Content chunking — not needed.

The idea: chop your content into small blocks "so the AI can cite them better". Google says its system already does chunking internally. If you do it on your site, you add nothing; if you do it badly, you lose context and make the content thinner. A service they were charging €2,000-5,000 per article for: zero value.

3. AI-specific rewriting — not needed.

Rewriting your content "so LLMs understand it better". Short sentences, lists everywhere, explicit definitions up top. Google says readability for humans is the very signal their AI models prioritise. If you write well for people, the AI will read it well too. There's no "AI style" different from "good style for humans".

4. Special schema — not needed.

Here Google makes an important distinction. Yes, you should have proper schema.org markup — structured information about who you are, what you sell, what you do. But no, there's no "AI schema" different from "regular SEO schema". The same markup SEOs were using back in 2018 is still the right one.

Why they're saying it now.

When Google publishes a guide this explicit, it's usually because an idea has spread far enough to hurt real SEO. The AEO/GEO services industry has grown so much this past year that aggressive practices are popping up (keyword stuffing recycled as "LLM optimization", schema spam, synthetic content) which actually damage rankings rather than help them.

Google is protecting the quality of its results. And in the process, without meaning to, it's doing you a favour if you run an SME. Here's the favour:

What you need to do to show up in AI search is exactly the same thing people have been saying for fifteen years: useful content, well structured, written by someone you can tell knows the subject. Nothing more, nothing less.

What does work in 2026.

If you want to appear in AI-generated answers — whether that's Google's AI Overviews, ChatGPT replies, Perplexity, Claude or whatever comes next — the work is the same as ever. Seven things nobody can sell you as "AEO" because they're not tricks, they're craft.

1. Answer a specific question.

Each page should answer a question a real person has. If your title is "Integrated digital growth solutions", you're not answering anything — you're shouting. If it's "How much does a Google Ads campaign cost for a dental clinic?", you have a title an LLM can cite.

2. Have real authorship.

LLMs prefer content with a name behind it, a credible bio, links to LinkedIn, evidence that you know what you're talking about. In Google's jargon, that's called E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness). It's been around since 2018 and it's still relevant. For an SME: put your name on things. The "anonymous corporate voice" works worse every year.

3. Clear structure with useful headings.

When an LLM picks what to cite, it looks for self-contained passages. If you have an H2 that says "What the service includes", the paragraph underneath should be readable on its own. If it depends on context from the three previous paragraphs, it won't be cited. One section, one argument.

4. Basic schema.org markup.

This blog you're reading has a BlogPosting in JSON-LD. Nothing exotic; it's the standard. If you have a local business, use LocalBusiness. If you sell products, Product. If you offer professional services, ProfessionalService. One piece of schema done well is worth more than ten done badly.

5. Speed and accessibility.

Google Search Console will tell you if your site is slow or has accessibility issues. Fixing them is free and has a direct impact. Don't underestimate it: a page that takes 3 seconds to load is invisible to crawlers that are in a hurry.

6. Credible external links.

If you reference a study, link to it. If you mention a tool, link to it. LLMs also read the open web and associate your domain with the context of the links you put out. A site that links to rigorous sources gains authority by association.

7. Up-to-date content.

An article dated 2021 talking about "trends" loses ground every month that passes. If you have evergreen content, keep it alive — add an update note, refresh examples, check that the links aren't broken. Google notices. So do the LLMs.

So what do I do with the €3,000 someone quoted me for GEO?

That's the interesting question. If an agency or consultant has quoted you €3,000-15,000 to "optimise your site for AI", you have several better options:

• Reinvest it in cornerstone content: three long, well-written articles, each answering a specific question in your sector. That brings you five years of organic traffic.
• Audit your current schema: more than half the SMEs I see have broken or duplicated schema. One day of work, big impact.
• Move to hosting that's actually fast: Vercel, Cloudflare Pages, anything that gives you a TTFB under 200ms. Cost: less than €20/month.
• Put yourself on your own website: an "About" page with your photo, full name and LinkedIn. That weighs more than five AEO consultants combined.

If you want to check whether what they're selling you is smoke, the test is simple: ask the consultant if they can link to the official Google documentation saying their technique works. If they can't link it, you have your answer.

Why SMEs want to believe it.

The asymmetry is this: you, as an SME owner, don't have time to read Google documentation. You shouldn't have to either; that's why you pay experts. The problem is you have so many emails from "experts" with pretty websites that it feels like everyone knows about this except you.

The fear about "this AI thing" — losing traffic because ChatGPT answers before the visitor even reaches your site — is real. But the solution isn't to buy new tricks. The solution is to do well what people have always said you should do well. And if you weren't doing it five years ago, that's not the LLMs' fault. It's the fault of not having done it earlier.

What I actually do.

When someone hires Petit Roig for "SEO or GEO", here's what I do. No secrets:

1. Technical audit — speed, indexing, schema, errors. 1 day.
2. Content audit — what you have, what answers what, where the gaps are. 1-2 days.
3. Keyword map — what people in your sector search for and haven't found you yet. 2-3 days.
4. Content plan — 12-18 articles that will answer specific questions over the next 6 months.
5. Weekly execution — writing, optimising, measuring, adjusting.

None of these steps is secret. None is new. None is called "GEO" or "AEO". It's called SEO and it's fifteen years old. If that sounds less glamorous than a "AI Visibility Optimization" package, maybe your SME doesn't need glamour — it needs results.