SEO vs GEO: Which Traditional SEO Tactics Still Work for AI Search? (with Charlie Whitworth)

About this episode

Welcome to season 5 of Search with Candour! Jack sits down with SEO veteran Charlie Whitworth to discuss whether SEO and “GEO” are essentially the same and which traditional SEO strategies still work for AI search. Follow Charlie • Whitworth SEO: https://www.whitworthseo.com/ • HIVE MCR: https://hive-mcr.co.uk/ • AIR SEO: https://www.whitworthseo.com/air-seo-ai-ready-seo-campaigns/ • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/the-authentic-seo/ • Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/whitworthseo.bsky.social • Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hivemcr/ Chapters 00:00 Highlight 01:36 Introduction 04:27 Meet Charlie Whitworth 05:33 Why this matters now 10:43 Good SEO = Good GEO 14:05 GEO bro debate 15:56 Data and measurement 21:46 KPIs that still matter 25:12 Technical SEO still wins 27:28 Content structure for LLMs 35:46 Pruning and cannibalisation 38:40 Content pruning done right 41:06 Brand mentions vs backlinks 44:34 Good products beat spam 47:07 Old tactics you need to stop 49:03 Testing and reprioritising 51:03 No silver bullets for GEO 56:39 Ignore the noise 58:11 Cloudflare bot settings 01:01:18 Recommendations: Log file analysis 01:05:03 Recommendation t