The Forgotten History: Why GEO Data Matters Over Time, Not Just in Real-Time

by impaca.ai team

Most marketers are trained to look at real-time dashboards. Impressions today. Clicks this week. Rankings this month.
But in the new world of Generative Engine Optimization (GEO), a snapshot isn’t enough.

AI answer engines like ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Google’s AI Overviews are constantly changing:

• The sources they cite update daily.
• The way they phrase answers evolves with model updates.
• Competitors can rise or vanish in days, depending on how their content is structured.

That’s why historical GEO data is strategic currency. It’s not just about knowing where you appear today—it’s about understanding how your visibility changes over time, and what that tells you about the market.

Why Real-Time Alone Misses the Picture

Imagine logging into your GEO tool and seeing that your brand is cited in Gemini today. Great news. But what happens tomorrow, when the model updates or when new sources emerge?

If you only track the present, you miss three crucial dimensions:

1. Trend detection
   A single appearance is noise. A pattern of appearances—rising, falling, stabilizing—signals a market shift.

2. Competitive benchmarking
   Did your competitor start appearing more often in AI Overviews last quarter? Without history, you’ll never see the takeover coming.

3. Attribution lag
   AI exposure influences awareness long before clicks or conversions. Bain’s 2024 survey showed 80% of consumers rely on AI summaries for part of their journey.
   If you don’t track those mentions over time, you can’t link them to shifts in brand awareness later.

Lessons From SEO: History Always Wins

SEO has taught us this before. Anyone who’s done SEO at scale knows the value of historical data:

• Ranking volatility shows when Google changes its algorithm.
• Seasonal patterns show when audiences care more or less about a topic.
• Link profiles over time tell the story of authority building.

GEO is no different—except the volatility is even higher. Large Language Models (LLMs) update weekly, sometimes daily. Without history, you have no way to explain sudden losses in visibility.

What You See With Historical GEO Data

Here’s what long-term GEO tracking unlocks:

This is why “set-and-forget” real-time dashboards are dangerous. They tell you what’s happening, not why.

Strategic Use Cases for Historical GEO Data

1. Boardroom reporting
   CMOs don’t want “we showed up this week.” They want a 12-month curve showing how AI mentions track against market share.

2. Budget allocation
   If AI Overviews cite you more in one product category but not another, historical data shows where to increase content investment.

3. Crisis management
   If misinformation creeps into AI answers (e.g. incorrect product pricing, outdated leadership info), history shows when it started, which helps correct the root cause.

4. Forecasting
   If ChatGPT citations of your competitor double every quarter, you know where the market is going before it shows in revenue numbers.

Data Points That Prove the Case

• Perplexity growth: In 2025, Perplexity went from ~10M to 22M monthly users in just six months. Without history, you’d miss that acceleration.
• Gemini adoption: Google reported ~400M monthly users by mid-2025, up sharply since launch. Historical curves matter to see how quickly platforms gain share.
• CTR collapse in AI Overviews: Studies show CTR on #1 results falls ~34% when an AI Overview appears. Without long-term data, marketers underestimate the compounding effect on traffic.

Why This Matters for CMOs and VP Marketing

Executives are under pressure to prove ROI. Real-time GEO tells you “are we there today?”—but history tells you:

• Are we improving?
• Are we ahead of the competition?
• Where are we losing ground?
• What’s the long-term cost of inaction?

The forgotten history of GEO is the difference between tactical reporting and strategic insight.

What This Means for impaca.ai

At impaca.ai, we believe GEO data is an asset, not just a metric. By keeping a full history of how your brand shows up in ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and AI Overviews, you can:

• Spot patterns and trends before they’re visible elsewhere.
• Build a story for executives and boards with multi-quarter visibility curves.
• Make smarter bets on where to invest content, SEO, and brand budget.

Real-time is necessary. But history is power. In a world where AI models change weekly, GEO history is the only way to see the signal through the noise.

Bibliography

• Bain & Dynata Generative AI Consumer Survey, 2024: 80% of consumers rely on AI answers for part of their journey.
• “Perplexity Revenue and Usage Statistics (2025),” BusinessOfApps.
• “AI Tools Usage Statistics Report 2025,” Views4You.
• “AI Overviews – Why Impressions Are Up, But Clicks Are Falling,” Arekibo, 2025.