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When Optimization Becomes Manipulation: Defending Generative Search against Malicious Generative Engine Optimization

arXiv · AI, language, vision and robotics · article · Sep 2, 2026 · UTC

This paper focuses on defending generative search engines against malicious Generative Engine Optimization (GEO), which rewrites web documents to match engines' citation preferences and thereby manipulates generated answers. Recent GEO methods have advanced from hand-crafted rewriting to automated and agentic optimization, substantially increasing the visibility of target documents in generated answers. However, defending against such manipulation poses two major challenges: attack documents remain factually consistent with their originals, rendering fact verification and perplexity filtering

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Evidence & attribution

First collected: 2026-09-21T05:51:54.566Z. This is not the publication date.