victorthinks

What matters, ranks.
What ranks, shifts.
What doesn’t shift? Disappears.

That’s the game now.

SEO is undergoing its largest existential rewrite since the blue link. Generative AI is no longer just a feature—it’s the new substrate. And Google’s making it clear: AI Mode is not an experiment. It’s a prototype of what all of Search is becoming.

This isn’t a tweak. It’s a fork in the road. If you’re still optimizing for the last decade, you’re already behind.

Welcome to GEO—Generative Experience Optimization.

What’s Changing (And Why SEOs Should Care)

The traditional playbook was built for documents. GEO is built for dialogue. It’s dynamic, user-modeled, and intent-adaptive. In this new terrain, you’re not optimizing for a keyword—you’re optimizing for a system that decides what a user wants before they finish typing.

The static SERP is collapsing. What’s replacing it?

1. User Embeddings

Context: Google isn’t just tracking what you do. It’s modeling who you are.

Think behavioral fingerprints. Search history. Click patterns. Device type. Session flow. Every interaction feeds the model’s understanding of you—not just what you typed, but what you meant to type. This embedding becomes your profile in the system’s eyes.

Why it matters: Two users can type the same query and see completely different results. Not based on A/B testing. Based on who the system thinks they are.

What to do:
Stop thinking in terms of single search intents. Start writing for user modes. Ask yourself: is your reader researching, comparing, buying, or doubting? Then match your structural tone to those needs. Think:

• “How to start…” → beginner mode
• “What’s the difference…” → comparison mode
• “Best tool for…” → buyer mode
  These are not just queries. They’re psychological states. Write accordingly.

2. Query Fan-Out

Context: One query becomes dozens.

You ask a simple question. The model breaks it down, spins out subqueries, interprets intent across multiple modalities—local, visual, semantic, behavioral—and stitches an answer together from across the web.

Why it matters: This isn’t just AI Mode behavior. Fan-out logic is already embedded in mobile Search. It’s the direction of all query parsing.

What to do:

• Go entity-first. Treat your topics like nodes in a graph, not pages in a silo.
• Use semantic SEO tools to uncover subtopics and related queries.
• Cover entire conceptual clusters, not just individual keywords.

This gives you surface area across the fan-out—so even if you’re not the primary result, you show up in the supporting logic.

3. Agentic Orchestration

Context: Search is no longer a lookup tool. It’s an agent.

AI Mode isn’t just finding content. It’s deciding how to package it, when to show it, and what to leave out. You’re not writing for a crawler anymore. You’re writing for an agent trying to help a user complete a task.

Why it matters: Pages that only answer one question? Skippable. The system’s looking for pages that anticipate the next question—or better, skip it entirely by answering it upfront.

What to do:

• Build compound content: guides with follow-ups, product pages with calculators, articles with embedded how-tos.
• Think like a decision tree. “If user asks this… then what?”
• Create structures agents want to use—because the agent is your new gatekeeper.

4. Personalization at Inference Time

Context: Personalization isn’t happening after the fact. It’s baked into the moment of inference.

The second someone types a query, the system runs it through a personalization model: session context, user embedding, intent prediction. You’re not just answering a query—you’re answering that person’s version of it.

Why it matters: You’re no longer ranking for a query. You’re ranking for an interpretation of it. For a persona. Maybe even for a bot acting on someone’s behalf.

What to do: Mike King nailed it: optimize for user types, not just query types.

• Segment your content by persona (first-timer, expert, hesitant buyer).
• Build dynamic components (FAQs, collapsible sections, quick summaries) that let agents or users jump straight to what they need.
• Prepare for a world where AI agents become your real audience.

The Shift: From SEO to GEO

SEO was about getting ranked.

GEO is about being selected.

That’s a subtle but radical shift. You’re not just trying to show up. You’re trying to be the one the system chooses to present, synthesize, or voice.

And that means optimizing for different principles:

• Be selectable by agents. Write in ways that are easy for LLMs to chunk, summarize, and stitch.
• Be interpretable by models. Use structured data, semantic clarity, and logical flow. If a model can’t understand your hierarchy, it won’t use it.
• Be contextual to user embeddings. Anticipate user modes. Match tone and format to the psychological context.

The old guard says: write for humans, not for algorithms.
GEO says: write for humans through algorithms.

Because that’s who’s reading first.

Bottom Line

The traditional SEO playbook isn’t just getting stale. It’s getting overwritten.

The core principles—clarity, value, accessibility—still matter. But the tactics? They need a complete rewire. We’re moving from static optimization to dynamic orchestration. From keyword targeting to intent sequencing. From ranking pages to designing agent-ready experiences.

The shift has already started.

Adapt, or disappear.