Common GEO mistakes (and how to avoid them)

Doing GEO isn't just about adding tactics: often what holds you back are mistakes you don't even know you're making. These are the eight most common —and most costly— and how to avoid them.

The costliest GEO mistakes: blocking the search crawlers (it removes you from citations), burying the answer far from the start, measuring a single engine or not measuring at all, publishing generic content with no original data, copying English strategies without adapting them to Spanish, and obsessing over a technical "trick" instead of investing in content and authority. Below, each mistake with its fix.

1. Blocking the crawlers that generate citations

If you block the search bots (OAI-SearchBot, Claude-SearchBot, PerplexityBot), you drop out of AI answers, and it's hard to reverse. Fix: let them in; check your robots.txt. How to set it up.

2. Burying the answer

If the answer is at the end of a long text, AI won't extract it. Fix: answer in the first lines, then elaborate. That's AEO. More.

3. Measuring a single engine

ChatGPT isn't everything: your visibility can be very different in Gemini, Claude, Perplexity or Grok. Fix: measure across several engines, not one.

4. Not measuring at all

Assuming you appear, with no data, is the foundational mistake. Fix: measure your starting point before optimizing. How to start.

5. Generic content with nothing citable

What repeats what everyone already said doesn't get cited. Fix: add original data, examples and frameworks. What AI cites.

6. Copying the English strategy

AI answers change by language and region; what works in the US doesn't translate on its own. Fix: measure and optimize for Spanish and your market.

7. Obsessing over a technical "trick"

llms.txt or schema aren't the lever; there's no evidence that, on their own, they get you into answers. Fix: prioritize content and authority, and treat the technical layer as hygiene. llms.txt · schema.

8. Not updating your content

AI distrusts the old and prefers the fresh. Fix: review and update data and dates regularly.

Frequently asked questions

What's the costliest mistake?

Blocking the search crawlers: it removes you from citations and is hard to reverse because models cache.

And the most common?

Not measuring at all and assuming you appear. Without data, you don't know where you stand.

Are llms.txt or schema a mistake?

Not in themselves; the mistake is expecting them, alone, to give you visibility. They're complements, not the engine.