Selection Rate Optimization · SRO
Selection Rate Optimization (SRO) is the practice of increasing how often an AI engine picks your page among the candidate sources it uses to build an answer. It is the AI-search counterpart of CTR optimization, except the one doing the “clicking” is the model, not a person.
Standalone definition · 47 words
Who coined the term Selection Rate Optimization?
The term comes from Dan Petrovic and his agency Dejan, who present it as the successor of CTR optimization for Google AI Mode, AI Overviews, Gemini, ChatGPT and Perplexity. Their point: ranking first in Google is no longer enough, because the page then goes through a filter that only extracts a few sentences for the model.
How is SRO measured in AI engines?
The metric is the Selection Rate: the share of times a source is kept among the grounding results. Dejan splits two levers. Primary bias, what the model already believes about the brand, and secondary bias, how the content is formatted once retrieved.
What can you do to improve SRO in practice?
The fast levers are on the content side: standalone sentences, a direct answer at the top of each section, precise and dated facts, because those sentences become grounding snippets. The slow lever is brand authority in the sources that feed model training.
Frequently asked questions about Selection Rate Optimization
Does SRO replace SEO?
No. To be selected, a page first has to be retrieved, so it must rank in the web search the engine relies on. SRO adds to SEO.
Can you measure your own Selection Rate?
Partly. You need to know the candidate sources, which only some tools or API tests can approximate. Engines do not publish this number.
Terms related to Selection Rate Optimization
Further reading on Selection Rate Optimization
- Best GEO tools 2026: top 10 free and paid
- Query fan-out, the tech behind AI Overviews and AI Mode
- ← Back to the GEO glossary (126 terms)
Sources for the Selection Rate Optimization definition
- Dejan, “Selection Rate Optimization” (blog, 2026)
- Dejan, “SRO & Grounding Snippets” (blog)