What is generative engine optimization (GEO)?
GEO is the work of making a business easy for AI assistants to find, read and cite. Google says it is still SEO. Where the term began and what the work covers.
How many customers use AI to find a local business? The 2026 numbers
About half of US consumers used an AI tool to find a local business in the past month, in two 2026 surveys. Every number with its source, date and method.
What a monthly website plan should include
What a fair monthly website plan covers, the questions to ask before you sign and the red flags that can cost you your site when you leave.
Is your website blocking ChatGPT? How to check
Open yourdomain.com/robots.txt to see which lines block ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Google, Bing and Apple. Then check the firewall, which can block them anyway.
What to ask before you hire a web designer
Eight questions to ask before you pay anyone to build or run your website, and what a good answer sounds like. Ownership, price, hosting, canceling and rankings.
Who owns your website, domain and Google Business Profile?
Four checks, no technical skill, that show whether your domain, hosting, site and Google profile are in your name or someone else's. Plus Search Console and Analytics.
Can anyone guarantee my business a spot in Google AI Overviews?
No. Google says following its rules does not guarantee crawling, indexing or serving. Every link in an AI Overview shares one position. Nine signs of vapor.
How to check which businesses AI names for your trade in your town
Ask ChatGPT, Google, Perplexity and Copilot what your customer asks. Record who they name and the date, then repeat monthly. What to ask, record and fix.
What happens to my website when I leave a managed platform?
Usually the site goes with the account, but the domain and email are yours. How to check with a free DNS lookup, from the move we did for Anderson Dock & Lift.
What an AI wrote when it picked our firm
A client sent us the memo an AI wrote when it chose Insight Investigative Group from an 11-firm shortlist. Seven checks, each one a fact on a page.
Does my business need an llms.txt file?
No. Google has published that its Search and AI features do not use llms.txt. What the file is, why agencies sell it and what to spend the money on instead.
How we write these
The blog answers the questions owners ask before they pay anyone for search or AI visibility work: whether a file or a tactic they were quoted for does anything, what happens to a site when they leave a platform, who owns the domain and the profile, how to check which businesses an AI names in their town and whether anyone can promise a spot in an AI answer.
Two rules apply to every post. First, every post answers one question a real owner asked us, and the answer is in the first two sentences, before any explanation. Second, every statistic is sourced and linked. When a post says Google does not use a file, it links to the page where Google says so. When it cites a survey, it names the survey, the sample and the date. A claim we cannot link to a source does not go in.
The posts are written from work we did, not from other people's summaries of it. Where the answer is no, the post says no, and says what to spend the money on instead. New posts are added when there is a question that needs a page, not on a schedule.