Google's AI Optimisation Guide: What a London Business Should Do and Ignore

For two years the AEO and GEO conversation has been mostly folklore. Everyone had a theory, everyone sold a checklist, and nobody at Google would say which parts were true. In 2026 Google finally wrote it down.

The page is called Optimizing your website for generative AI features on Google Search, and it was last updated on 10 July 2026. I sell AEO as part of my work, so I read it the way a sceptic would: looking for what it contradicts. It contradicts quite a lot of what is sold under that label, and I think that is good news for a London local business.

Is SEO still relevant for AI Overviews and AI Mode?

Yes. Google says its generative AI features are rooted in its core Search ranking and quality systems, so the best practices for SEO continue to be relevant. There is no separate door into AI Overviews. The same index and the same ranking signals feed them.

Google names two techniques doing the work. The first is retrieval-augmented generation, which it also calls grounding: the system uses its core ranking systems to retrieve relevant, up-to-date pages, then reads those pages to build an answer with links to supporting sources. The second is query fan-out, a set of related queries the model generates to fetch more results. I look at that one in detail in the post on query fan-out.

The practical reading is blunt. If a page is not indexed and eligible to show in Google Search with a snippet, it is not eligible for an AI feature either. AEO is not a way round ranking. It sits on top of it.

What does Google tell site owners to do?

Google gives three jobs: create valuable non-commodity content, build and maintain a clear technical structure, and keep local business and ecommerce details current. Its closing summary adds two more: monitor visibility in Search Console, and explore agentic experiences.

What does Google say you can ignore?

Google says you can ignore llms.txt files, chunking content, rewriting content just for AI, seeking inauthentic mentions, and over-focusing on structured data. It describes these as tactics that are not effective or not supported by how Google Search works, and it names AEO and GEO directly as terms where many suggested hacks fall into that category.

What counts as non-commodity content for a local business?

Non-commodity content is content with a first-hand point of view that goes beyond common knowledge, and Google contrasts it with commodity content that anyone could have written. The guide gives an example pair. '7 Tips for First-Time Homebuyers' is commodity. 'Why We Waived the Inspection and Saved Money: A Look Inside the Sewer Line' is not.

Translate that to London. 'Five reasons to choose a local dentist' is commodity. 'What we learned replacing the waiting room after a lease dispute on the Holborn Viaduct' would be non-commodity, because only you could write it. The test I use is simple: could a competitor swap in their name and publish the page unchanged? If yes, it is commodity.

Google adds a warning that matters for anyone tempted by AI writing tools. It says not to recycle what others have said or what could be easily produced by a generative AI model. If you do use AI tools, the output still has to meet Search Essentials and the spam policies. I go much further on this in the post on non-commodity local content.

Does my Google Business Profile matter for AI answers?

Yes. Google states that generative AI responses can include information about local businesses, and that Google Business Profiles help your business be visible in both AI responses and other Search results. The guide links to its page on adding and managing business details on Google.

This is the single most under-used sentence in the whole guide. Most London businesses reading it will spend a week agonising over whether their site needs an FAQ schema while their profile still has the wrong secondary category, no description and opening hours from before the pandemic. The profile is a structured, verified, Google-owned dataset about your business. Treat it that way.

• Name, address and phone exactly as they appear on your website and signage.
• Categories as specific as is true, and as few as describe the core business.
• Hours, including holiday hours, kept current.
• Services and products filled in rather than left blank.
• Photos that are yours.
• Reviews answered, and a steady flow of new ones.

Does my site have to opt in to appear in AI features?

In effect, yes. Google says a site must be included in Search generative AI features in Search Console to be eligible for display, on top of the normal technical requirements. It is a prerequisite rather than an optimisation.

I would verify this for every client site. The check takes minutes and the downside of getting it wrong is complete invisibility in those features no matter how good the content is. It is also a sensible moment to confirm that robots.txt and any CDN or hosting layer are not blocking Google's crawlers, because that is a more common cause of absence than any content issue.

How do I measure AI visibility?

Google points site owners to the Generative AI performance report in Search Console, which it says helps show how people discover your content through generative AI features. It covers Google Search and Discover.

That is Google's sanctioned measurement surface, and I would use it in preference to the proliferating third-party AI visibility dashboards. Those tools prompt a sample of questions and record what comes back. That is a useful spot check, and it is also a snapshot of a probabilistic system rather than a measurement. Google's own report is the only source that reflects what Google actually served.

Pair it with the conversion side. Google notes that clicks from pages with AI Overviews can be higher quality, with users more likely to spend more time on the site. Whatever the click count does, track calls, form fills and bookings, because a smaller number of better visitors is a perfectly good outcome for a local business.

What should I actually do this month?

1. Check eligibility. Confirm the site is indexed, snippet-eligible and included in generative AI features in Search Console.
2. Audit the Business Profile against the real world, field by field.
3. Pick your five most valuable pages and ask whether a competitor could swap their name in. Rewrite the ones where they could, adding first-hand detail.
4. Cancel anything you are paying for that Google says to ignore. llms.txt packages, chunking services and bought mentions.
5. Set up a monthly look at the Generative AI performance report and a separate look at calls and enquiries.

Two cautions before you start. First, do not do all five in a week and then change six other things at once, because you will not know what moved anything. Second, resist the urge to measure success only by traffic. Google itself suggests looking at various indicators of conversion, such as sales, sign-ups and information lookups about your business. For a London local business that means calls and bookings, which can rise while clicks fall.

Notice what is missing from that list: a new discipline. Google positions all of this as an extension of SEO rather than a replacement for it, and having read the guide twice I think that is accurate. The honest version of AEO is good SEO plus a very clean entity and a very honest profile.