I couldn't find anyone who had actually tested SEO vs AI search side by side with real sites and real data. So I built the test myself. Inspired by a real startup called Assembled that started closing deals because buyers found them through ChatGPT and Perplexity — not Google — I wanted to understand if optimizing for AI search is genuinely different from optimizing for Google. The answer so far is yes. Completely different. Here's what I built: 🌿 geo.searchshowdown.online — Verdantis, a luxury houseplant subscription box where every plant ships with a name, a personality and a backstory. Built entirely for GEO and AEO. Every word is structured for ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini to read, summarize and cite without a human ever clicking through. 🕯️ seo.searchshowdown.online — Époque Élégante, a historically accurate dinner party concierge. Built entirely for traditional SEO. Keyword rich blog posts, internal linking, meta descriptions written to earn human clicks from Google search results. Same domain. Same launch date. Same zero domain authority. Completely opposite optimization strategies. Built and launched in under a week on Hostinger.

SEO vs AI Search, Live Experiment

I built 2 sites to test if AI search replaces Google

I built 2 sites to test if AI search replaces Google