> ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.surnex.io/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # GEO overview > Generative engine optimization — track how often AI answers mention and cite your brand, by topic. **GEO** — generative engine optimization — measures your presence in AI-generated answers at the level of a **topic** rather than a single query. Where [AI search](/ai/overview) tools are one-off lookups, GEO tracks topics on a schedule so you can see the trend. The page is headed **AI Visibility**. ## Stat cards | Card | What it shows | | ---------------------- | -------------------------------------------------- | | **Topics Tracked** | How many topics you monitor | | **Avg. Mentions** | Average times your brand is mentioned per snapshot | | **Avg. Citation Rate** | Average share of answers that cite your domain | **Mentions** and **citations** aren't the same thing, and the distinction is the point of this page. A mention is the AI naming your brand in its answer; a citation is it linking your domain as a source. Being mentioned without being cited means you have brand awareness but the model isn't treating your site as the authority — that's a content problem. Being cited without being mentioned means your page is feeding answers that don't credit you. ## Tracked Topics The list under **Tracked Topics** — "Keywords monitored for AI visibility across search engines" — is what gets checked on each snapshot. ### Add topics Click **Add Topics** and enter keywords in the textarea, **one per line or comma-separated**. Both separators work, so pasting a list from anywhere is safe. Topics are seeded automatically when a [project is created](/projects/add), so the list won't be empty on a new project. ### Pause a topic Toggle a topic to pause it. Paused topics stop being snapshotted but keep their history, and appear dimmed in the list. Useful when you want to reduce cost without losing the record. ### Remove a topic Confirm *"Are you sure you want to remove '…'? This will stop tracking AI visibility for this keyword."* This deletes the topic's history — pause instead if you might want it back. ## Choosing topics Topics are the subjects you want to be the answer for, phrased the way someone would ask: * **"best rank tracking tool for agencies"** works — a real question with room for a vendor in the answer. * **"rank tracking"** is too broad. The answer will be a definition and won't cite vendors. * **Your brand name** works only as a control, to confirm the system finds you at all. Aim for questions where a good answer would naturally name a product like yours. If you can't imagine your company in the answer, tracking it will only ever produce zeros. ## Schedule Click **Settings** to open the **AI Visibility Schedule** panel: **Frequency** (Every day / Every 3 days / Once a week), a **Check Hour**, and a **Timezone**. GEO defaults to **daily at 00:00 UTC**, matching every other schedule on a new project. The **Timezone** is applied, and cadences are intervals from the last run rather than calendar rules. See [How data collection works](/projects/data-collection). Each snapshot queries AI platforms for every active topic, so cost scales with topic count multiplied by frequency. Twenty topics checked daily is 600 checks a month. ## GEO vs. AI search | | GEO | [AI search](/ai/overview) | | -------- | ------------------------------- | --------------------------------- | | Unit | A topic, tracked over time | A query, looked up now | | Cadence | Scheduled, daily by default | On demand | | History | Yes — snapshots accumulate | Only past lookups | | Question | "Is my share of voice growing?" | "Am I cited for this, right now?" | Use GEO to measure progress and AI search to diagnose a specific answer. ## Related Snapshots, sources, and the raw LLM responses for one topic. Which brands dominate the answers for your topics.