What this means
Optimization for visibility, citation, or inclusion in generative search and answer engines.
Historical record
Cloudflare’s new Search / Agent / Training crawler defaults take effect
A publisher’s AI policy can now directly influence discoverability, agent access and potentially conventional search access when crawler purposes overlap.
Perplexity introduces Q2D-Web for large-scale retrieval evaluation in agentic RAG
The visible user prompt is not necessarily the query a source competes for. AI visibility therefore depends on several distinct stages: query reformulation, first-stage retrieval, ranking, evidence selection, and eventual citation.
Google publishes official guidance for generative AI Search visibility
Practitioners gained first-party guidance separating verified requirements from speculative AEO/GEO tactics.
Google introduces AI Mode and describes query fan-out
Visibility is no longer tied only to the user’s literal query; sources can be discovered through hidden subqueries and related retrieval paths.
OpenAI launches ChatGPT Search
ChatGPT became a direct discovery channel where crawlability, source selection and citation visibility matter.
Google launches AI Overviews broadly in U.S. Search
AI inclusion, source selection and click behavior became material concerns for mainstream SEO and GEO strategies.
Research paper formally introduces Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)
GEO became a named research problem with explicit visibility metrics rather than only an informal marketing practice.
Google announces Search Generative Experience (SGE)
The dominant search platform formally entered generative search, making AI-mediated source selection a core visibility issue.
Microsoft launches the new AI-powered Bing
Generative answers and citations moved into a major search engine, accelerating the need to understand visibility beyond traditional rankings.
Perplexity launches its answer engine
It helped establish the answer-engine model that later drove GEO, citation tracking and AI visibility measurement.