GEO for a new website: where to start with no track record

For a new website, GEO starts with the unglamorous basics: get the site crawled and indexed, state clearly who you are, publish a small set of strong pages, and set up the profiles and listings that confirm you exist. GEO (generative engine optimization) is the work of getting your business described accurately and cited in AI answers. A site with no track record cannot skip to the last step.

The reason is simple. Google says a page must be indexed and eligible to be shown in Google Search with a snippet before it can be a supporting link in AI Overviews or AI Mode. OpenAI, Anthropic and Perplexity each document a search crawler and tie it to showing up in their search results. Until a search system has read your site, an AI answer has nothing of yours to draw on.

Step one: make sure the site can be indexed

Google's technical requirements are short. A page is eligible to be indexed when "Googlebot isn't blocked," the page works, "meaning that Google receives an HTTP 200 (success) status code," and "The page has indexable content." Google adds a warning on the same page: "Just because a page meets these requirements doesn't mean that a page will be indexed; indexing isn't guaranteed."

New sites fail the first test more often than you might think, because of settings left over from the build. Check these before anything else:

• robots.txt does not block the whole site. A development site often carries a rule that disallows everything.
• No page carries a noindex rule that was added to keep the unfinished site out of search.
• Password protection and "coming soon" modes are switched off.
• Your important content is in text on the page, not only inside images.

The same check applies to the AI search crawlers. OpenAI recommends allowing OAI-SearchBot in robots.txt so a site can appear in ChatGPT's search features. Perplexity makes the same recommendation for PerplexityBot, and Anthropic says blocking Claude-SearchBot "may reduce your site's visibility and accuracy in user search results." Our guide to AI crawlers and robots.txt lists which bots do what. Some hosts and security services block certain bots unless you change a setting, so also read how to check whether your CDN or firewall is blocking AI crawlers.

Step two: tell the search engines you exist

Google's page on getting your website on Google says it "automatically looks for sites to add to our index; you usually don't even need to do anything except post your site on the web. However, sometimes sites get missed." The first reason it gives for a missed site is: "Your site isn't linked to by other sites on the web."

You can speed up discovery without promising yourself a date.

1. Verify the site in Google Search Console. It shows you what Google has crawled and indexed, and it is where you submit sitemaps.
2. Submit a sitemap. A sitemap is a file listing the URLs you care about. Google's sitemap documentation says you might need one if "Your site is new and has few external links to it." Many content management systems create one for you. A sitemap "doesn't guarantee that all the items in your sitemap will be crawled and indexed."
3. Request indexing for your key pages. The URL Inspection tool in Search Console lets an owner or full user ask for a crawl. Google's recrawl documentation says "there's a quota for submitting individual URLs and requesting a recrawl multiple times for the same URL won't get it crawled any faster." Google does not publish the quota number. Use the requests on your home page and main service pages.
4. Set up Bing Webmaster Tools. Microsoft says "Bing and Copilot search experiences rely on the same core crawling, indexing, and ranking foundation as traditional search," so Bing's index matters for Copilot. Our guide to Bing Webmaster Tools and IndexNow covers the setup.

Then wait, and check. Google says crawling "can take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks." Bing's help page on why a site is not in its index says that even after you submit sitemaps or pages, "we still need to crawl and assess it before it appears in the index." You can spot-check with the site: operator in Google, though Google notes it "doesn't necessarily return all the URLs that are indexed."

Step three: state clearly who you are

A new business is unknown to every system. Your job is to give them consistent facts to work with. In GEO this is often called entity clarity: making it plain that your business is one specific, real thing.

• One name, one spelling. Use the same business name on the site, in profiles and on listings.
• Real contact details. An address or service area, a phone number and an email, on the site in text.
• An About page that says something. Who owns the business, what it does, where, and since when. Our guide to About pages and author pages has a full checklist.
• Organization markup, if you can add it. Google says it can help Google "disambiguate your organization in search results." It is optional, and Google says no special markup is needed for its AI features.

Our article on what happens when your brand is unknown to AI describes this starting position in more detail.

Step four: publish a small set of strong pages

A new site does not need a hundred pages. It needs the handful a customer would look for, done properly:

• A home page that says what you do, for whom and where, in the first few lines.
• One page per main service or product, with specifics: what is included, who it suits, how it works, and pricing or how pricing is set.
• An About page and a contact page.
• A short set of real customer questions with direct answers.

Google's Starter Guide says: "Creating content that people find compelling and useful will likely influence your website's presence in search results more than any of the other suggestions in this guide." Its AI guidance favors what it calls non-commodity content, meaning material that comes from your own experience and can't be found on every competitor's site.

Don't rush to fill the site. Google has no preferred word count. Its spam policies describe generating many pages "without adding value for users" as scaled content abuse, and its AI guide says that building separate pages for every variation of a question, primarily to manipulate rankings or AI responses, violates that policy.

Step five: set up profiles and listings

Off-site profiles do two things for a new business. They give search engines other places to confirm your details, and they give you your first links.

• Google Business Profile, if you serve customers at a location or travel to them. Google's AI guide says Business Profiles "can help your products and services to be visible in both AI responses and other Google Search results." See our guide to optimizing a Google Business Profile for generative search.
• Bing Places for Business. Microsoft says registering helps keep key details "current and eligible for inclusion in AI-generated responses."
• The profiles your customers expect: the main social networks for your field, and the directories and associations your industry uses.

Enter the same name, address and phone number everywhere. Fix any mismatch at the source.

Step six: earn your first links and mentions

Google "primarily finds pages through links from other pages it already crawled." Bing is more direct: "A common problem for new websites is the lack of links pointing to it from other places on the web," and "we prefer to see a few links from quality, authoritative websites pointing at you, rather than see hundreds of new links from random sites."

Good first sources are people who already know you: suppliers, partners, your chamber of commerce, a trade association, local news covering your opening. Google's Starter Guide lists social media, community engagement, advertising and word of mouth as ways to promote a new site.

Do not buy links. Google's advice to new sites is blunt: "please don't pay them to link to you; that could be considered a violation of Google's spam policies." Our guide to digital PR for GEO explains how to earn coverage properly.

What to expect, and when

Nobody can give you a date. Google says: "Some changes might take effect in a few hours, others could take several months." What you can know is the usual order.

On that last row: Search Console has a Generative AI performance report for AI Overviews and AI Mode. Google says that if you don't see it, "This usually happens when your site hasn't received enough impressions in generative AI features on Google Search." An empty report on a new site is normal.

Record a baseline now. Ask two or three AI assistants about your business by name and about your main service in your area. Save the answers with the date. Repeat every month or so. That is enough measurement for a new site.

What not to buy yet

What is worth paying for early is the setup itself, if you don't have the time or skills: a crawlable, well-structured site, clear pages, and correct profiles. Google's own guidance says a good time to bring in an SEO is when you are planning to launch a new site.

Conclusion

A new website earns AI visibility the same way it earns search visibility: by being reachable, clear about who it is, useful on a small number of pages, and confirmed by other sites. None of that is fast, and none of it can be bought as a shortcut. If you want a review of your new site's structure and visibility, request a free GEO audit. More guides are in our GEO and AEO Guide.

Frequently asked questions