GEO ROI claims are outrunning the evidence

This visual is a reality check for the AEO/GEO hype cycle. The survey it cites says the independent evidence is still thin outside vendor case studies, and the stronger claims are not yet matched by strong testing.

The useful bits are blunt:

– Only 2 studies had real traffic/conversion data outside controlled benchmarks
– 3/54 tactic-domain combinations showed a significant positive effect in C-SEO Bench
– SAGEO Arena found body text optimization reduced citation frequency by 6–9%

So yes, there are case studies. But reproducible evidence is still weak, and some of the louder ROI claims are doing too much.

That’s the tension the SEO/AEO research is really pointing at.

Data source: arXiv

Related read: Are we optimising for the right engine? Insights from the latest SEO / AEO research