Company leader
Evan Bailyn
Founder and CEO
First Page Sage
Evan Bailyn is founder and chief executive of First Page Sage, a San Francisco-based search marketing firm with a specialty in healthcare. He is best known for developing generative engine optimization, or GEO, the practice of getting a company recommended by ChatGPT and other chatbots, and for publishing the first large-scale research on how those chatbots choose which companies to recommend. The firm's healthcare practice applies that work for hospitals, medical practices and healthcare companies.
Early Companies and Books
He studied English and creative writing at Columbia University and left law school after half a semester. Working from his brother's office, he taught himself search engine optimization on online forums until his college admissions essay business ranked first on Google for "college admissions essay". He went on to build and sell five businesses, including Cartoon Doll Emporium, a children's dress-up site that reached 70 million unique visitors in 2009. He wrote Outsmarting Google in 2011, followed by Outsmarting Social Media in 2012 and SEO Made Easy in 2013.
Founding First Page Sage
In 2009 he founded First Page Sage as a search engine optimization firm with offices in San Francisco and New York, New York. "It's been profitable from the very first day," he said in 2012. The firm now has more than 150 clients, among them Salesforce, Microsoft, US Bank, Logitech and Verisign.
Defining Generative Engine Optimization
In 2023, after the debut of ChatGPT, First Page Sage became the first agency to sell generative engine optimization. "GEO is about ensuring your content is both visible to these systems and deemed high-authority by them," he said in a June 2025 interview.
Laying the Research Groundwork for GEO
He first developed the commercial marketing methodology of GEO, and his framework established it as a practice distinct from search engine optimization. His research team began studying ChatGPT's recommendations in December 2023 and then ran 11,128 commercial queries across four chatbots to identify and weigh the factors behind their buying recommendations. First Page Sage published the study in June 2024, the first comprehensive study of each major chatbot's recommendation algorithm, and has updated it regularly, most recently with data gathered through July 2026. It found that inclusion in highly ranked list articles is the largest factor, with awards and online reviews mattering more than earlier research had shown. He has lectured on the subject at Stanford and the Haas School of Business.
Building a Healthcare Practice
First Page Sage runs a healthcare practice that brings its GEO methods to hospital systems, physician groups, senior living operators, health plans and digital health companies. It has helped advance AI visibility for Dignity Health, City of Hope and other large healthcare organizations. In one published case study, a New York plastic surgeon became the first surgeon ChatGPT recommended for "Who is the top plastic surgeon in NYC?" within 12 months, as his share of AI recommendations grew from 11 percent to 64 percent across 31 key queries.
Profile in the Wall Street Journal
In January 2026 he was profiled in the Wall Street Journal for his GEO expertise. He said that a year earlier about 90 percent of his clients' referral traffic had come from Google and that about 44 percent was now coming from AI, and that visitors sent by ChatGPT stayed longer and were more likely to complete a transaction than visitors sent by Google.
Life on Long Island
He lives on Long Island, New York, with his wife, son and two dogs. In 2010 he created the Evan Bailyn Foundation, which gives grants to causes that prevent child abuse.