In sales meetings and seminars, I've noticed a pattern among people who already know something about GEO (Generative Engine Optimization):
"We already have solid SEO in place, so our GEO is probably fine too."
Honestly, whenever I heard this, I'd respond with something like "that's not necessarily true" — but I didn't actually have hard numbers to back it up. I'd been explaining this based on client conversations and things I'd read about overseas research, without ever running the test myself.
So this time, we decided to gather the data ourselves and check. First up: the cosmetics industry.
What we did
For this investigation, we followed these steps.
1
Prepare 30 queries likely to be searched or asked in the cosmetics industry (6 questions each across 5 categories: "recommendations," "comparisons/differences," "how to choose," "skin concerns/why," and "ingredients/usage")
2
Actually run these 30 queries on Google and record the top 10 sites (= what SEO shows us)
3
Ask the same 30 queries directly to ChatGPT and Gemini, and extract every URL actually cited in their answers (= what GEO shows us)
4
Cross-reference the two: how much overlap is there, and how much isn't there
The key was comparing steps 2 and 3 on the same footing. We checked how much SEO rankings and AI citations actually overlap.
Two queries with the biggest gap
Here, we look at two queries where SEO rankings and AI citations diverged.
Example 1: "What lotion do you recommend for dry skin in your 40s?"
Actual sites appearing per source for "What lotion do you recommend for dry skin in your 40s?"
Source
Sites that actually appeared
SEO Top 10
@cosme / ELLE / hadato / Matsukiyo Cocokara Online / CUSTOMLIFE medical, and others
ozmall.co.jp / hadato.jp / my-best.com, and others (partial overlap with SEO top 10)
Not a single ChatGPT citation overlapped with the SEO top 10. Gemini, being tied to Google Search, showed some overlap — but even so, the match was only partial.
Example 2: "What's the difference between quasi-drugs and regular cosmetics?"
Actual sites appearing per source for "What's the difference between quasi-drugs and regular cosmetics?"
Source
Sites that actually appeared
SEO Top 10
Kao / Shiseido / Saishunkan Pharmaceutical / a law firm (Bell Best Law Office) / a pharmaceutical law consultancy, and others
ChatGPT citations (5)
The law firm (cited multiple times) / 1-2 other sites
Gemini citations (24)
Numerous government agencies, industry associations, and manufacturer sites. 7 matched the SEO top 10
The SEO top 10 was made up of manufacturer sites, a law firm, and pharmaceutical-law specialist sites. ChatGPT cited very few sources, while Gemini cited a large number — but even then, the overlap with the SEO top 10 was under a third of all citations.
Overlap, SEO-only, and GEO-only: concrete examples
Next, we break down how SEO and AI citations diverged. Here are three patterns drawn from the two queries above.
Real examples of domains that overlapped, appeared in SEO only, or appeared in GEO (ChatGPT/Gemini) only
Cited only by ChatGPT. Nowhere to be found in the SEO top 10
3. GEO only
Quasi-drug vs. cosmetics difference
Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (mhlw.go.jp) / NITE / Wikipedia / various prefectural government sites
Cited only by Gemini — sources of the kind you wouldn't normally expect to rank in search results at all
In particular, for the second query, Shiseido's official page — which ranks in the SEO top 10 — wasn't cited by AI at all, while Gemini cited pages from the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare and local governments instead. At least in this investigation, search rankings and AI citations did not line up closely.
Aggregate results across all 30 queries
ChatGPT × SEO Top 10 overlap rate
15.0%
24 of 160 total citations
Gemini × SEO Top 10 overlap rate
29.9%
125 of 418 total citations
Total citations, matches with the SEO top 10, and overlap rates for ChatGPT and Gemini
Metric
ChatGPT
Gemini
Total citations (across all 30 queries)
160
418
Matches with the SEO top 10
24
125
Overlap rate
15.0%
29.9%
Queries with zero citations
1 (about the effects of ceramide)
0
ChatGPT and Gemini showed clear differences in both the number and type of sources cited. Gemini's higher overlap with the SEO top 10 is likely due to its grounding being tied to Google Search. SEO always produces a ranking; for some queries, though, AI didn't cite any sources at all.
What the 30 cosmetics-industry queries showed
At least based on this cosmetics-industry data, we found gaps that the assumption "solid SEO means GEO is fine too" doesn't account for. Over 80% of the sites ChatGPT actually cited never appeared in Google's top 10. Some citations came from personal blogs, e-commerce product pages, government agencies, and even Wikipedia. Across these 30 queries, the overlap between SEO rankings and AI citations was limited.
Separately from SEO rankings, Genview's Query Improvement feature lets you continuously track how often your brand is mentioned and cited in AI answers — based on actual citation counts rather than a proprietary score — across multiple AI models, with a focus on ChatGPT and Gemini.
We plan to run the same investigation in other industries. Next, we'll run the same test in another industry, under the same conditions.
We haven't published the full details of this investigation (the individual data for all 30 queries, for example), but if you'd like to know more, please feel free to get in touch here.