# AiM: full text

> AiM is an answer engine optimization (AEO) practice in Fairfield, Ohio. It gets Greater Cincinnati service businesses recommended when customers ask ChatGPT, Gemini, or Google AI who to hire.

## Key facts

- Name: AiM (legal name AiM Operations LLC; also written AiM Operations, Applied Intelligence Methods)
- Based in: Fairfield, Ohio, USA (Greater Cincinnati)
- Serves: Fairfield, OH; Cincinnati, OH; Greater Cincinnati; Southwest Ohio, and remote clients
- Founder: Ayo Omoloja
- Service: answer engine optimization (AEO), in four steps: find out what AI says, fix what AI can't read, give AI reasons to name you, keep checking. AiM does not run paid ads
- Answer engine optimization (AEO) means getting a business named in ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and Perplexity answers
- Free tool: AI Visibility Score (formerly the AI Search Grader), a one-time score out of 100 across sentiment, presence quality, brand recognition, share of voice, and market position
- Other free tools: AI Crawler Check (reads robots.txt for GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot and others), Buying Question Generator, llms.txt Generator, Local Business Schema Generator
- Method: the same agreed buying questions every month across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google AI, scored by appearance rate, share of voice, position and accuracy (https://www.aimtech.solutions/how-we-measure/)
- Facts for AI assistants: https://www.aimtech.solutions/llm-info/
- Contact: info@aim.us
- Website: https://www.aimtech.solutions
- Not affiliated with AOL Instant Messenger, which was also abbreviated AIM

## Posts

### AI doesn't rank you, it shortlists you

URL: https://www.aimtech.solutions/blog/ai-doesnt-rank-you-it-shortlists-you.html
Published: 2026-10-29
Category: Explainers

A search page hands the buyer ten links and lets them do the comparing. An AI answer does the comparing first and names a handful of options. Ranking did not stop mattering. It stopped being the finish line.

## What changed for the buyer

| | A search results page | An AI answer |
|---|---|---|
| What the buyer sees | A list of links to compare | A written answer that names a few options |
| What the buyer does next | Opens several pages | Often reads the answer and stops |
| Where you win | A high position | A place in the answer |

The last row is our summary. The middle row has evidence. Pew Research tracked the Google searches of 900 US adults in March 2025. When a search showed an AI summary, people clicked a regular result link in 8% of visits. When it did not, they clicked in 15%. They clicked a link inside the summary in 1% of visits. Pew also found 26% of visits with a summary ended the browsing session, against 16% without.

That is one panel, one country, and Google only. It shows a pattern, not what will happen to your traffic.

## An answer names a few, not one

The version of this idea that says AI "selects one answer" is too strong. When we asked a search engine for the best AEO agency for a small business, each written answer named about five firms. We describe that test in [We ran our own five-question test](/blog/we-ran-our-own-five-question-test.html). The honest summary is that AI gives the buyer a shortlist.

Google's guide to its AI features defines "query fan-out" as "a set of concurrent, related queries generated by the model." If that is how the answer gets built, being relevant to the related questions around a topic matters more than ranking for one phrase.

## Is SEO dead

No. Google's guide to generative AI features says "The best practices for SEO continue to be relevant", and says optimizing for generative AI search is still SEO. Treat ranking as one input to the shortlist, not the goal.

## Three things we think decide who is named

These are our reading, not measured results. We do not know the internal rules of any engine.

1. **Be clearly one thing.** If the engine can't tell who you are, it can't name you. In our own test, searches for AiM returned other companies with similar names. Use one name, one description, and the same business details on your site and your listings.
2. **Be named by others.** In our test, the lists for "best agency" questions were mostly written by the firms on them. Mentions on pages you don't control, such as directories, reviews, and press, are one way into those lists.
3. **Put the answer on the page, in the HTML.** Vercel found in December 2024 that OpenAI's and Anthropic's crawlers fetched JavaScript files but did not run them. Text that only appears after JavaScript runs can be missed. Put prices, services, and answers in plain page text. [Write pages AI can quote](/blog/write-pages-ai-can-quote.html) shows how.

## What to do this week

1. Ask three AI tools the question your buyer asks, and write down who is named.
2. If you are not on the list, check whether someone with a similar name is.
3. Fix the first screen of your main service page so it answers the question in two sentences.

Want to see who is named for your category today? Run the [free AI Visibility Score](/ai-visibility-score/).

## Sources

Checked October 18, 2026.

- [Pew Research Center: Google users are less likely to click on links when an AI summary appears (July 22, 2025)](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/07/22/google-users-are-less-likely-to-click-on-links-when-an-ai-summary-appears-in-the-results/)
- [Google Search Central: Optimizing your website for generative AI features on Google Search (updated July 10, 2026)](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/ai-optimization-guide)
- [Vercel: The rise of the AI crawler (December 17, 2024)](https://vercel.com/blog/the-rise-of-the-ai-crawler)
- Our own five-question test, run October 18, 2026, described in the linked post.

---

### We ran our own five-question test: AiM was named 0 times in 10 searches

URL: https://www.aimtech.solutions/blog/we-ran-our-own-five-question-test.html
Published: 2026-10-28
Category: Test

We ran the test from our own guide on ourselves. AiM was not named in any of the 10 searches. We expected that from a site that had been publishing for ten days, and it is now our baseline.

The test is the one in [Five questions to test your brand in ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity](/blog/five-questions-to-test-your-brand-in-ai.html). Here is exactly what we ran, what came back, and what we cannot conclude.

## What we ran, and what we did not

- **One engine, not three.** We used the web search tool built into Claude Code. It returns about nine web pages and a written answer on top of them. It is not ChatGPT, the Claude app, or Perplexity, and those can answer differently.
- **One day.** October 18, 2026. Each of the five questions was asked twice, so 10 searches.
- **Three questions included our domain.** Questions 3 to 5 contained "aimaeo.vercel.app" so the engine knew which AiM we meant. Real buyers often will not add that.

The questions, word for word:

1. What is the best answer engine optimization (AEO) agency for a small business?
2. What are the top AEO services for a local business on a budget?
3. What is AiM, the AEO agency at aimaeo.vercel.app, and who is it for?
4. Is AiM (aimaeo.vercel.app) worth it compared with a traditional SEO agency?
5. How much does AiM (aimaeo.vercel.app) cost and what is included?

## What came back

| Question | Named AiM | Pages in both runs | What came back instead |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Best agency, small business | 0 of 2 | 3 of 15 | Agency "best of" lists and agency service pages |
| 2. Top services, local, budget | 0 of 2 | 0 of 18 | Pricing guides and agency sales pages |
| 3. What is AiM | 0 of 2 | 9 of 9 | Guides to AEO agencies, plus pages about other firms such as aeoagency.org and i-am.agency |
| 4. AiM vs a traditional agency | 0 of 2 | 0 of 18 | General "AI SEO vs traditional SEO" guides |
| 5. AiM cost | 0 of 2 | 9 of 9 | Vercel AI Gateway pricing, an e-commerce package called Aimeos, AI model price lists |

> On three of five questions, asking twice gave mostly different pages.

## What we saw

**We were not found, and the engine said so.** In all six searches that named us, the written answer said it found nothing about AiM. None of them invented a description. That is the behaviour you want when a name is unknown.

**Short names attract lookalikes.** Asked about AiM, the engine returned other companies with similar names. The written answers kept them apart, but a hurried reader or a different engine might not. If your name is short or common, search it with your category and see who else shows up.

**Category lists were mostly written by the companies on them.** For the two questions that did not name us, all four written answers said the results were mostly vendor-written or sales pages. One said a roundup ranked its own publisher first. To be named for a category question, you need to appear in lists other people write, not only on your own site.

**Two runs of the same question can disagree.** Questions 1, 2 and 4 returned mostly different pages on the second run. The two identical results were questions 3 and 5, where there was nothing relevant to find. One run is an anecdote.

## What we are not claiming

- That ChatGPT, Claude, or Perplexity would also not name us. We did not test them.
- That 10 searches on one day show how often anyone is named. This is a snapshot, not a score.
- Why we were not found. A site this new has little outside mention, but we did not test that cause.
- That the written answer is a faithful reading of every page. We read the titles and links and the answer, not each page.

## What to do with this

1. **Run your five questions twice.** Write the date and the exact wording down.
2. **Search your name with your category.** Note any lookalikes the engine confuses you with.
3. **Look at who gets named for the category questions**, and where those lists are published.
4. **Repeat monthly with the same wording.** We will run ours again and report what changed, including if nothing did.

Want a scored version across ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity? The [free AI Visibility Score](/ai-visibility-score/) runs a version of these questions for your brand.

## How to check our work

Test run October 18, 2026 with the queries above. We keep the full list of pages returned for each run.

---

### Which AI engine should you check first? A buyer-led way to choose

URL: https://www.aimtech.solutions/blog/which-ai-engine-to-check-first.html
Published: 2026-10-27
Category: Comparison

There is no single AI engine to optimize for. The usage numbers say one thing and the referral numbers say another, and your own buyers may say a third. So start with them.

The short version: ask your buyers, check your analytics, then test the top two engines. Here is the data behind that advice.

## How many people use these tools?

Pew Research surveyed 5,119 US adults between February 17 and 23, 2026. It found that 44% have used ChatGPT, up from 34% in 2025, 23% in 2024 and 18% in 2023. About half of US adults (49%) now use any AI chatbot, up from 33% in 2024, and about a quarter (24%) use chatbots daily. Pew changed the question wording in 2026 to cover other chatbots, so the jump is not perfectly comparable with earlier years.

## Where do AI visitors actually come from?

SE Ranking analysed data from 101,574 websites for January 2025 to April 2026. AI platforms sent 0.32% of all website traffic, up from 0.24% in 2025 and 0.02% in 2024. Of that AI traffic:

| Platform | Share of AI referral traffic |
|---|---|
| ChatGPT | 74.78% |
| Gemini | 11.56% |
| Perplexity | 7.23% |
| Copilot | 3.51% |
| Claude | 2.62% |

ChatGPT's share fell from 79.74% in 2025, even though its referrals grew 27%. Claude's referrals grew 320% and Gemini's 231%. SE Ranking notes the results may not reflect every website, industry or region. Its list of tracked platforms does not include Google's AI Overviews, so treat this as a partial picture.

## Why not just pick the biggest?

Because "biggest" depends on who you measure. Usage across all adults is not the same as referrals to business sites, and referrals to one industry can look very different from the average. A figure that is true for everyone may be wrong for your buyers.

## A buyer-led way to choose

| Step | What to do | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ask ten recent customers which AI tool, if any, they used before they contacted you | Where your real buyers ask |
| 2 | Look at the referral sources in your analytics for visits from AI tools | Which engines already send you traffic |
| 3 | Run the [five-question test](/blog/five-questions-to-test-your-brand-in-ai.html) on the top two | Whether you are named, and what is said |

If you cannot get that data yet, our rule of thumb is to test ChatGPT and one engine that searches the live web, then add the rest once you see referrals. That is a judgment, not a finding.

Want all three tested at once? The [free AI Visibility Score](/ai-visibility-score/) asks ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity and scores the answers out of 100.

## Sources

Data checked October 18, 2026.

- [Pew Research Center: Americans and AI 2026 (June 17, 2026)](https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2026/06/17/americans-and-ai-2026/)
- [SE Ranking: AI traffic research study (June 18, 2026)](https://seranking.com/blog/ai-traffic-research-study/)

---

### Schema vs llms.txt vs plain good copy: where to spend your first hour

URL: https://www.aimtech.solutions/blog/schema-vs-llms-txt-vs-good-copy.html
Published: 2026-10-26
Category: Comparison

You have one hour and three things people tell you to do: write clearer page copy, add schema markup, or create an llms.txt file. The evidence points to an order. Clear copy first, then crawl access and markup that matches your page. The llms.txt file comes last.

## The comparison

| Option | Effort | What the evidence says | Risk |
|---|---|---|---|
| Plain, clear copy in the page HTML | Low to medium | Google says SEO best practices remain relevant to its AI features. Vercel's December 2024 study found OpenAI's and Anthropic's crawlers did not run JavaScript, so text built in the browser can be missed | Low |
| Structured data (schema) | Low to medium | Google says there is "no special schema.org structured data that you need to add" for its AI features, and that markup should match the visible text | Markup that disagrees with the page creates a new conflict |
| llms.txt | Low | Google says you do not need AI text files. SE Ranking found about 10% of nearly 300,000 domains had one, with no correlation to AI citations | Low, but mostly a time cost |

Crawler behaviour changes, and these findings are snapshots. The sources are at the end.

## Your first hour

1. **Minutes 0 to 20: read the page like a crawler does.** Fetch the raw HTML and check that your price, services and key facts are in it. The commands are in [Can AI crawlers read your site?](/blog/can-ai-crawlers-read-your-site.html)
2. **Minutes 20 to 40: fix the first screen.** Put the answer in the first two sentences, and use plain, specific words. The checklist is in [Write pages AI can quote](/blog/write-pages-ai-can-quote.html)
3. **Minutes 40 to 50: make any markup match.** If you use schema, check each field against what a visitor can read on the page. Remove anything that does not match.
4. **Minutes 50 to 60: llms.txt, only if it fits.** It is worth the time mainly for a documentation-heavy site. [llms.txt: what it is and whether you need one](/blog/llms-txt-do-you-need-one.html) explains when.

## Why this order

Copy comes first because it is the thing every engine reads, and it helps people too. Markup comes second because Google's own guidance says it is not required for AI features, but it must agree with the page when you use it. llms.txt comes last because the evidence for it is the thinnest.

Not sure where your pages stand? The [free AI Visibility Score](/ai-visibility-score/) shows what ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity say about you today.

## Sources

Checked October 18, 2026.

- [Google Search Central: AI features and your website (updated December 10, 2025)](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/ai-features)
- [Vercel: The rise of the AI crawler (December 17, 2024)](https://vercel.com/blog/the-rise-of-the-ai-crawler)
- [SE Ranking: llms.txt and AI citations, nearly 300,000 domains](https://seranking.com/blog/llms-txt/)
- [llmstxt.org: the proposal (September 3, 2024)](https://llmstxt.org/)

---

### AEO trackers vs doing the work: what a dashboard can't fix

URL: https://www.aimtech.solutions/blog/aeo-trackers-vs-doing-the-work.html
Published: 2026-10-22
Category: Comparison

There is a growing category of tools that watch what AI says about your brand. They are useful. They are also easy to mistake for the fix. This is where each one fits. We run a free grader and sell the fixing work, so weigh our view accordingly.

## What a tracker does

A tracker asks a set of questions to AI engines on a schedule. It then reports whether you appear, where you are placed, and which sources the engine cited. That is monitoring. It is the same thing you do by hand in a spreadsheet, done on a timer.

## What a tracker cannot do

It cannot edit your pages. It cannot correct a directory listing, change what a review site says, or ask an author to fix an article. The numbers move only when the sources behind the answers move.

| What the dashboard shows | What actually fixes it |
|---|---|
| You are not mentioned | Crawl access, clear pages, consistent facts. See [Can AI crawlers read your site?](/blog/can-ai-crawlers-read-your-site.html) |
| A wrong price or feature | Fix the source pages. See [What to do when AI gets your brand wrong](/blog/what-to-do-when-ai-gets-your-brand-wrong.html) |
| A competitor is named instead of you | Read the page the engine cites for them and compare it with yours |
| Your mentions dropped this week | Check whether the engine changed or your site changed. Your log tells you which |

## When a tracker is worth paying for

- You watch many questions, brands or markets, and a spreadsheet will not keep up.
- You report to people who want a regular chart.
- You have someone who will act on what it shows.

## When it is not

If you have one site and one team, a weekly spreadsheet does the same job for nothing. The routine is in [A 60-minute weekly AEO routine for small teams](/blog/weekly-aeo-routine.html), and the question set is in [Five questions to test your brand in ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity](/blog/five-questions-to-test-your-brand-in-ai.html).

## What to look for if you buy one

AI answers vary from run to run, so one sample proves little. A good tracker lets you check its work:

1. It shows the raw answers, not only a score.
2. You can set your own questions.
3. It tells you which engines and models it uses, and whether web search is on.
4. It says how often it runs, and how many times it asks each question.
5. You can export the data.

Want a one-time scored baseline before you pick a tool? The [free AI Visibility Score](/ai-visibility-score/) rates your brand out of 100 across three engines.

---

### DIY AEO vs hiring an agency: what each really takes

URL: https://www.aimtech.solutions/blog/diy-aeo-vs-hiring-an-agency.html
Published: 2026-10-21
Category: Comparison

Most small teams can do the first round of AEO themselves. The real question is which parts are worth paying someone else to do. This is our view, and where a number is an estimate, we say so.

## Side by side

| | Do it yourself | Hire an agency |
|---|---|---|
| Time to start | A few focused days (our estimate; yours will vary) | Set by the agency. Ask for a timeline in writing |
| Time after that | About an hour a week (the routine we use) | You approve and answer questions. They do the work |
| Skills needed | Clear writing, access to your site, patience | Knowing how to brief and judge an agency |
| Tools | A spreadsheet, the free grader, your site admin | Their tools, plus your access to your site and listings |
| Main risk | Fixing the wrong thing, or stopping after a month | Paying for reports without changes |
| Best when | One site, one location, someone has the time | Many pages or locations, many outside sources to fix, no time |

## A rule of thumb by size

- **Solo or very small team:** do it yourself. Run the weekly routine for a month before you spend anything.
- **10 to 50 people:** a hybrid often fits. Pay for the first round of setup and fixes, then run the weekly routine in-house.
- **Many locations, or regulated claims:** an agency usually earns its fee, because the facts are many and the cost of a wrong one is higher.

That is a judgment, not a measurement. Your own test results should outrank it.

## What you can do yourself first

You can finish most of the first round in a few weeks, and none of it needs a tool you do not already have:

1. Test what AI says about you: [Five questions to test your brand in ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity](/blog/five-questions-to-test-your-brand-in-ai.html)
2. Make sure crawlers can reach your site: [Can AI crawlers read your site?](/blog/can-ai-crawlers-read-your-site.html)
3. Rewrite your key pages so the answer comes first: [Write pages AI can quote](/blog/write-pages-ai-can-quote.html)
4. Keep it going: [A 60-minute weekly AEO routine for small teams](/blog/weekly-aeo-routine.html)

## Where doing it yourself gets hard

- **The fixes are spread out.** Wrong facts often live on listings, review sites and old articles, not only on your own pages.
- **Consistency across many pages or locations.** One page is easy. Fifty is a project.
- **Nobody owns the weekly work.** The routine only works if someone does it every week.
- **You cannot ship the change.** Some fixes need developer time you do not have.

## Do it yourself or bring in a partner?

Start on your own for 30 days. Keep the log. If the same errors keep coming back, or the fixes sit in places you cannot reach, that is the signal to pay for help. If you are unsure, [Who should not hire an AEO agency](/blog/who-should-not-hire-an-aeo-agency.html) gives you a filter before you spend anything.

Want a scored baseline before you decide? The [free AI Visibility Score](/ai-visibility-score/) rates your brand out of 100.

---

### Who should not hire an AEO agency (an honest filter)

URL: https://www.aimtech.solutions/blog/who-should-not-hire-an-aeo-agency.html
Published: 2026-10-20
Category: Trust

We sell AEO work, and some of you should not buy it. Here are six situations where paying an agency is the wrong move, and the free path to take instead.

Most content about hiring help exists to convince you to hire help. This is the opposite: a filter you can run before you spend anything.

## You should not hire us, or anyone, if...

### 1. You have not run the test yourself yet

Ask ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity five buyer questions. It takes about 30 minutes and costs nothing. If you are named and described correctly, you may not have a problem worth paying to fix. The steps are in [Five questions to test your brand in ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity](/blog/five-questions-to-test-your-brand-in-ai.html).

### 2. Your site cannot be crawled

If the AI crawlers cannot reach your pages, no amount of content work helps. Checking robots.txt, your firewall and your raw HTML is free, and it is often an afternoon of work. Start with [Can AI crawlers read your site?](/blog/can-ai-crawlers-read-your-site.html)

### 3. You want a guaranteed placement

Nobody controls what an AI engine says. Answers can differ from one run to the next, and the engines change. Anyone who promises you a position is selling something they cannot deliver.

### 4. You want a dashboard, not a fix

Tracking tools show whether you are mentioned. They do not change what is said. If a chart is all you need, buy the chart. Paying for fixes you will not use is the expensive version of the same mistake.

### 5. Nobody inside owns the outcome

Someone has to approve your real prices, services and claims, and answer questions fast. An agency cannot be the source of truth about your own business.

### 6. You have a small site and a small budget

One hour a week is enough to start. The routine is in [A 60-minute weekly AEO routine for small teams](/blog/weekly-aeo-routine.html). Run it for a month before you decide you need more.

## When hiring is worth it

- You have many locations, products or pages, and the facts on them change often.
- Your claims are regulated or technical and need careful wording.
- The wrong information is spread across many places you do not control: listings, review sites, old articles.
- You have no one with time to test every week and act on what the tests show.
- You need one person coordinating fixes across your site, your listings and your press.

## What to ask any agency, including us

1. How do you test, and can I see the raw answers, not just a score?
2. What exactly will you change, and where?
3. What can you not control, and how do you say so in the contract?
4. What would make you tell me not to buy?

If an agency cannot answer the fourth question, that tells you something.

Not sure which side of the line you are on? The [free AI Visibility Score](/ai-visibility-score/) gives you a scored starting point before you spend a dollar.

---

### AEO vs GEO vs SEO: which term to use, and does it matter?

URL: https://www.aimtech.solutions/blog/aeo-vs-geo-vs-seo.html
Published: 2026-10-19
Category: Explainers

If you have read about getting found in AI answers, you have met three acronyms: SEO, AEO and GEO. Vendors talk about them as if they were three different jobs. They are closer to three names for overlapping work.

The short answer: say AEO to your buyers, mention GEO so you match what people search for, and keep doing the SEO work you already do.

## What does each term name?

| Term | What it names | Where you see it | What you actually do |
|---|---|---|---|
| SEO (search engine optimization) | Earning a place in a list of search results | Google and Bing results pages | Make pages crawlable, useful and well linked |
| AEO (answer engine optimization) | Getting named inside the answer a person asks for | ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Google's AI Overviews | Publish clear facts and keep them consistent where AI reads them |
| GEO (generative engine optimization) | The same goal as AEO, under another name | The same AI engines | The same work |

GEO has a traceable origin. A 2023 research paper titled "GEO: Generative Engine Optimization" (Aggarwal and colleagues, accepted to KDD 2024) used the term and tested tactics for getting content cited in generated answers. Its abstract reports that the methods can boost visibility "by up to 40%" in generative engine responses. That is an upper bound, and the paper says the benefit varies by domain. Marketers picked up the term, and many use it as another word for AEO.

## Does the label change the work?

Very little. Google's guidance says the best practices for SEO remain relevant for its AI features, and that "there are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, nor other special optimizations necessary."

What changes is the target. Pew Research tracked the browsing of 900 US adults in March 2025. When a Google search produced an AI summary, people clicked a regular result link in 8% of visits. When it did not, they clicked in 15% of visits. That study is observational and covers Google only, so it shows a pattern, not a cause. It does show why being named in the answer matters: fewer people click through when the answer is already on the page.

## Which term should you use?

- **With buyers and your team:** AEO. It says what you want, which is to be named in the answer.
- **In your content:** mention GEO once, where it fits, so people who search that term find you.
- **In your plan:** keep SEO. Google says SEO fundamentals still apply to its AI features, and some AI tools search the live web, so pages that are easy to crawl help in both places.

## What to do this week

1. Pick one label for your team and use it consistently.
2. Run the five-question test from [Five questions to test your brand in ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity](/blog/five-questions-to-test-your-brand-in-ai.html).
3. Check that the crawlers can reach your site: [Can AI crawlers read your site?](/blog/can-ai-crawlers-read-your-site.html)

Want a score instead of a to-do list? The [free AI Visibility Score](/ai-visibility-score/) rates your brand out of 100 across three engines.

## Sources

Checked October 18, 2026.

- [Google Search Central: AI features and your website (updated December 10, 2025)](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/ai-features)
- [Pew Research Center: Google users are less likely to click on links when an AI summary appears (July 22, 2025)](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/07/22/google-users-are-less-likely-to-click-on-links-when-an-ai-summary-appears-in-the-results/)
- [Aggarwal et al.: GEO: Generative Engine Optimization (arXiv, 2023)](https://arxiv.org/abs/2311.09735)

---

### A 60-minute weekly AEO routine for small teams

URL: https://www.aimtech.solutions/blog/weekly-aeo-routine.html
Published: 2026-10-16
Category: Playbooks

AEO is not a one-off project. Models update, search indexes refresh, and the pages AI reads about you change. An answer that names you today can drop you next month.

You don't need a team to keep up. You need the same hour, every week, run the same way.

## The routine

| Block | Time | What you do |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Test | 20 min | Ask the same five questions on ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity. Log the answers. |
| 2. Compare | 10 min | Check against last week. Are you still mentioned? Did your position move? Any new errors or new competitors? |
| 3. Fix | 20 min | Pick one thing and fix it. |
| 4. Record | 10 min | Write down the date, what you changed, and what to check next week. |

### 1. Test

Use the five-question set from [Five questions to test your brand in ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity](/blog/five-questions-to-test-your-brand-in-ai.html). Keep the wording identical every week, or you can't tell what moved. Use a fresh chat for each question and run each one more than once.

### 2. Compare

Keep the log in a simple spreadsheet. One row per question per engine, with columns for the date, whether you were mentioned, your position, what was said, anything wrong, and the competitors named. A change you can see in two consecutive weeks is worth acting on. A single odd answer is not.

### 3. Fix

Choose one fix only. When you change five things at once, you never learn which one worked. Good first picks:

- A wrong fact: [What to do when AI gets your brand wrong](/blog/what-to-do-when-ai-gets-your-brand-wrong.html)
- A weak page: [Write pages AI can quote](/blog/write-pages-ai-can-quote.html)
- A competitor that keeps showing up in your place: read the page the engine cites for them and ask what it says that yours doesn't

### 4. Record

Note what you changed and the date. Next week's comparison depends on it.

## Once a month

Re-run the crawl checks from [Can AI crawlers read your site?](/blog/can-ai-crawlers-read-your-site.html). A firewall rule or a site redesign can block the bots without anyone noticing.

## What to expect

Don't expect overnight movement. Some engines search the live web and may reflect page changes sooner. Others change more slowly. Nobody can promise a date, which is exactly why a log matters: it shows you the trend even when a single week looks flat.

If you want a scored starting point before you begin, the [free AI Visibility Score](/ai-visibility-score/) rates your brand out of 100 across all three engines.

---

### llms.txt: what it is and whether you need one

URL: https://www.aimtech.solutions/blog/llms-txt-do-you-need-one.html
Published: 2026-10-15
Category: Explainers

Sooner or later someone tells you to add an `llms.txt` file. Here is what it is, what we know about it, and how to decide.

## What it is

`llms.txt` is a plain text file in Markdown, placed at the root of your site (yoursite.com/llms.txt). It was proposed by Jeremy Howard in September 2024 as a convention: a short, curated map of your most useful pages, written for AI tools instead of for people.

A typical file has a title, a one or two line summary, and groups of links with a short description each:

```
# Your Company

> One or two sentences on what you sell and who it is for.

## Products
- [Product overview](https://yoursite.com/product): What it does and who it suits
- [Pricing](https://yoursite.com/pricing): Plans, limits and what is included

## Help
- [FAQ](https://yoursite.com/faq): Answers to the questions buyers ask most
```

## What is unproven

It is a proposal, not a standard. Here is what we found when we checked.

- **Google says you don't need it.** Google's guidance on AI features says: "You don't need to create new machine readable files, AI text files, or markup to appear in these features." The page was last updated December 10, 2025.
- **One large study found no link.** SE Ranking looked at nearly 300,000 domains. About 10% (10.13%) had an llms.txt file. Having one showed no correlation with being cited in AI answers, and removing it from their model made the model more accurate. The authors say results are context-dependent and may change.
- **Some AI labs publish one for their own docs.** The proposal's site says OpenAI, Anthropic and Gemini publish llms.txt files for their developer documentation. That shows they publish the file. It does not say their products read other sites' files.

Some developer tools and agents will read it if you hand them the URL, which is why documentation-heavy sites adopt it first. That is a narrower benefit than "get cited by ChatGPT".

## Do you need one?

- **Probably worth an hour** if you have a large site, a documentation section, or many product pages.
- **Low priority** if you have a small site with a handful of clear pages. Your time does better elsewhere.
- **Never a substitute** for the basics. A file that points to pages crawlers can't reach, or pages with vague copy, fixes nothing.

## How to try it

1. Pick five to ten pages that answer the questions buyers ask: product, pricing, FAQ, comparison, docs.
2. Write a one-line description for each. Lead with what the page answers.
3. Save the file as `llms.txt` at your site root. Serve it as plain text.
4. Link to your canonical URLs only, not to redirects or tracking links.
5. Update it when pages change, and add a reminder to review it each quarter.

It is not access control. Anything you list is public, and leaving a page out does not hide it.

## What to do first

Two things matter more than this file. First, make sure the crawlers can reach your pages at all: [Can AI crawlers read your site?](/blog/can-ai-crawlers-read-your-site.html) Second, write pages an engine can quote: [Write pages AI can quote](/blog/write-pages-ai-can-quote.html)

Not sure where you stand? The [free AI Visibility Score](/ai-visibility-score/) scores what ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity say about you today.

## Sources

Last checked October 18, 2026.

- [llmstxt.org: the proposal (Jeremy Howard, September 3, 2024)](https://llmstxt.org/)
- [Google Search Central: AI features and your website](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/ai-features)
- [SE Ranking: llms.txt and AI citations, 300,000 domains](https://seranking.com/blog/llms-txt/)

---

### Write pages AI can quote: a five-point checklist

URL: https://www.aimtech.solutions/blog/write-pages-ai-can-quote.html
Published: 2026-10-14
Category: Guides

An AI answer is assembled from passages. If the answer to a buyer's question is buried under three paragraphs of warm-up, the engine has little to work with. It may quote a competitor's clearer page instead, or fill the gap with a guess.

These five checks work on any page: pricing, product, about, FAQ. Each takes a few minutes.

## The five checks

### 1. Put the answer first

Open every section with the answer, then explain. If a heading asks "Who is it for?", the first sentence under it should say who it is for. Detail, caveats and background come after.

### 2. Use headings that match real questions

"How much does it cost?" beats "Pricing overview". Buyers ask AI full questions, and a heading written like the question makes the matching passage easy to find. Use the words your customers use, not your internal names.

### 3. Be specific

Replace adjectives with facts: the price, the plan limits, who it suits, what is included, what is not. Only state what you can support. A vague claim gives an engine nothing to quote. A wrong claim is worse.

| Before | After (example) |
|---|---|
| "We offer flexible plans for growing teams." | "Plans start at $99 a month, with a free trial." |

### 4. One claim per sentence, in plain words

Short sentences are easier to quote accurately. Name the subject. A sentence that begins "It also does this" loses its meaning the moment it is lifted out of the page, so write "AiM also tracks your mentions every week" instead.

### 5. Show when it was updated and who stands behind it

Add a visible "last updated" date to pages with prices, features or policies, and make clear which company the page speaks for. People use that to judge freshness. Machines can too.

## A two-minute test

Copy only the first screen of a page into ChatGPT or Claude. Ask: "What does this company sell, who is it for, and what does it cost?"

Fix the page, not the prompt. If an engine is already getting facts about you wrong, start with [What to do when AI gets your brand wrong](/blog/what-to-do-when-ai-gets-your-brand-wrong.html). If you want to see how you score today, run the [free AI Visibility Score](/ai-visibility-score/).

---

### What to do when AI gets your brand wrong

URL: https://www.aimtech.solutions/blog/what-to-do-when-ai-gets-your-brand-wrong.html
Published: 2026-10-13
Category: Guides

You ask ChatGPT about your product and it quotes last year's pricing. Or it describes a feature you retired, or recommends a competitor for a job you do better.

Wrong answers often trace back to a source: an old page, a stale listing, a conflicting number in two places. That is good news, because a source can be fixed. Here is the order we work in.

## Six steps

### 1. Write down the exact error

Record the question, the engine, the date, and the sentence that is wrong. Without this you can't tell later whether your fix worked.

### 2. Find where it could come from

Some engines show their sources. Perplexity lists citations, and ChatGPT shows links when it searches the web. You can also ask the engine where it got a claim. Then check the usual suspects:

- Your own old pricing, feature and about pages
- Old blog posts and press releases that are still live
- Review sites, directories and marketplace listings
- Comparison articles written by other people

### 3. Fix the sources you control

Update, redirect or remove anything out of date. Then make one page that states the plain facts: what you sell, who it is for, what it costs, the main features, and the date the page was last updated. Keep it in normal text on the page, not inside an image or a script.

### 4. Make the facts machine-readable

Structured data tells crawlers what each fact is. For most companies the useful types are `Organization`, `Product` and `FAQPage` from schema.org. A small example:

```
{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "Product",
  "name": "Your product",
  "description": "What it does and who it is for.",
  "offers": { "@type": "Offer", "price": "99.00", "priceCurrency": "USD" }
}
```

The markup must match what a visitor can read on the page. If the two disagree, you have created a new conflict instead of fixing one.

### 5. Fix the sources you don't control

Update your profiles on directories and review sites. For articles written by others, ask the author for a correction and send them the updated facts. It is slower than editing your own site, and it often matters most.

### 6. Re-test the same question

Ask the same question on the same engines after a couple of weeks. Engines that search the live web can reflect changes sooner than models that rely mostly on what they were trained on. Nobody can promise a date, so keep checking and keep the notes.

## What not to do

- **Don't hide text for crawlers.** Content that visitors can't see is a risk, and it won't hold up.
- **Don't mass-post the same claim everywhere.** One accurate page that other sources can point to beats fifty copies.
- **Don't change facts without changing the date.** A visible "last updated" line helps people and machines trust the page.

Not sure what the AI gets wrong about you yet? The [five-question test](/blog/five-questions-to-test-your-brand-in-ai.html) will show you, and the [free AI Visibility Score](/ai-visibility-score/) will score it.

---

### Five questions to test your brand in ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity

URL: https://www.aimtech.solutions/blog/five-questions-to-test-your-brand-in-ai.html
Published: 2026-10-12
Category: Guides

You don't need software to get a first read on how AI talks about your brand. You need five questions, three tabs, and a notes page. It takes about 30 minutes.

The five questions split into two kinds. Two don't mention you, so they show whether the AI brings you up on its own. Three do mention you, so they show what it says once it knows who you are. Our own grader uses the same split.

## The five questions

Swap the brackets for your own category, buyer and competitor.

### Questions that don't name you

1. **"What is the best [category] for [type of buyer]?"** Example: "What is the best invoicing tool for a five-person agency?"
2. **"What are the top [category] options for [specific need or budget]?"** Example: "What are the top invoicing tools for teams that bill in several currencies?"

### Questions that name you

3. **"What is [Brand] and who is it for?"**
4. **"Is [Brand] worth it compared with [competitor]?"**
5. **"How much does [Brand] cost and what is included?"**

## How to run the test

- **Use a fresh chat for each question.** Turn off memory or personalization if the tool has it, so earlier chats don't tilt the answer.
- **Use the same wording on all three engines.** ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity answer differently, and that difference is the point.
- **Ask each question more than once.** Answers vary from run to run. Two or three tries per question gives you a pattern instead of an anecdote.
- **Write down the date.** Models and search indexes change, so a result is only true for a moment.

## What to write down

For every answer, record five things:

- Were you mentioned?
- If so, where in the answer: first, middle, or an afterthought?
- What did it say about you, in its own words?
- Was anything wrong or out of date?
- Which competitors did it name, and which sources did it cite?

## How to read what you find

- **Missing from questions 1 and 2:** a visibility problem. The AI doesn't connect you with your category.
- **Mentioned, but low in the list or described generically:** a position problem. You are in the room but not the pick.
- **Wrong or outdated facts in questions 3 to 5:** an accuracy problem. We cover how to fix those in [What to do when AI gets your brand wrong](/blog/what-to-do-when-ai-gets-your-brand-wrong.html).

## Keep it repeatable

Save the exact wording. Small changes to a question can change the answer, so if you rephrase every month you can't tell what moved. Run the same five questions once a month and keep the notes in one place.

Prefer not to do this by hand? The [free AI Visibility Score](/ai-visibility-score/) asks ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity a version of these questions and scores the answers out of 100.

---

### AEO vs SEO: what changes and what stays the same

URL: https://www.aimtech.solutions/blog/aeo-vs-seo-what-changes.html
Published: 2026-10-09
Category: Explainers

Answer engine optimization (AEO) is the work of getting named in the answer when someone asks ChatGPT, Claude, or Perplexity a question. SEO is the work of ranking a link on a results page. They overlap a lot. They are not the same job.

If you already do SEO, you are not starting from zero. You are changing what you aim at.

## Side by side

| | SEO | AEO |
|---|---|---|
| What you compete for | A position in a list of links | A mention inside a written answer |
| How buyers ask | Short keyword phrases | Full questions, often with context |
| What gets chosen | A page | A brand or product, usually one of a few |
| Where the proof lives | Mostly your site, plus links to it | Your site, plus reviews, directories, articles and other pages the AI reads |
| What you measure | Rankings, clicks, traffic | Whether you are mentioned, where you are placed, what the answer says |

## What stays the same

- **A site machines can read.** Pages need to load, be crawlable, and put their key facts in plain HTML. We covered the checks in [Can AI crawlers read your site?](/blog/can-ai-crawlers-read-your-site.html)
- **Pages that answer a real question.** Clear, specific content that answers what a buyer actually asks works for both.
- **Reputation.** Other sites writing about you matters to search engines and to AI answers.
- **Search itself.** Some AI tools search the live web to build an answer, so a page that ranks and reads cleanly helps there too. Keep your SEO.

## What changes

### 1. The goal is the answer, not the click

A ranking earns a chance at a click. An AI answer often finishes the job on the spot. The win is being named, described correctly, and recommended.

### 2. You are picked from a short list

An AI answer usually names a handful of options, not ten blue links. Being listed fifth as a generic alternative earns very little. Position inside the answer matters as much as being in it.

### 3. Your own site is only one source

AI answers lean on more than your pages. Review sites, directories, comparison articles and community discussions can all shape what gets said about you. Part of AEO is making sure those places have the right facts.

### 4. Results vary, so you measure by sampling

Ask the same question twice and the wording, and sometimes the brands, can differ. A single check proves little. Ask the same set of questions on several engines, more than once, and look for the pattern.

## What to do this week

1. Run the five crawl checks from [Can AI crawlers read your site?](/blog/can-ai-crawlers-read-your-site.html)
2. Write down five questions a buyer would ask before choosing a product like yours.
3. Ask them on ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity. Note whether you appear, where, and what is said.

That second question is the one the [free AI Visibility Score](/ai-visibility-score/) scores, out of 100, across all three engines.

---

### Can AI crawlers read your site? A 15-minute check

URL: https://www.aimtech.solutions/blog/can-ai-crawlers-read-your-site.html
Published: 2026-10-08
Category: Guides

Most AEO advice starts with content. Start one step earlier. If an AI system can't fetch your pages, nothing you write on them will ever show up in an answer.

This check takes about 15 minutes and needs a browser and a terminal. You are looking for three problems: bots that are blocked, bots that are challenged, and pages that arrive empty.

## Know who is knocking

AI companies run more than one crawler, and each has a different job. These are the names the companies publish. Confirm them against each company's documentation before you write rules, because they change.

| Company | Bot | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| OpenAI | `GPTBot` | Collects content that may be used to train models |
| OpenAI | `OAI-SearchBot` | Builds the index behind ChatGPT search results |
| OpenAI | `ChatGPT-User` | Fetches a page when a person asks ChatGPT to look at it. OpenAI says robots.txt rules may not apply |
| Anthropic | `ClaudeBot` | Collects content that may be used for training |
| Anthropic | `Claude-SearchBot` | Indexes pages for Claude's search results |
| Anthropic | `Claude-User` | Fetches a page when a person asks Claude to |
| Perplexity | `PerplexityBot` | Builds Perplexity's search index |
| Perplexity | `Perplexity-User` | Fetches a page when a person asks Perplexity to. Perplexity says it generally ignores robots.txt |
| Google | `Google-Extended` | A robots.txt token, not a separate crawler. It controls whether Google uses your content for Gemini training and grounding. Google says it does not affect Search |

The split matters. Search bots decide whether you can be cited in an answer. Training bots are a separate decision about your content being used to build models. You can say yes to one and no to the other.

User-triggered fetchers are a third case. They act when a person asks, and two of the vendors say robots.txt may not govern them. Blocking them is a firewall decision, not a robots.txt one.

## The five checks

### 1. Read your robots.txt

Open yoursite.com/robots.txt. Look for `User-agent: *` followed by `Disallow: /`, and for a Disallow under any bot in the table. A blanket block, often left over from a staging site, is the most common cause.

### 2. Allow the search bots on purpose

A minimal version:

```
User-agent: OAI-SearchBot
Allow: /

User-agent: Claude-SearchBot
Allow: /

User-agent: PerplexityBot
Allow: /
```

Whether to also allow the training bots is a business decision. Make it deliberately, not by default. Check each vendor's page for how its user-triggered fetcher treats robots.txt, because the answers differ.

### 3. Check your firewall and CDN

Bot protection can serve a challenge page or a 403 to crawlers even when robots.txt says yes. Look in your CDN or firewall dashboard for blocked or challenged requests from these user agents. A quick spot check from a terminal:

```
curl -sI -A "PerplexityBot" https://yoursite.com/
```

You want a `200`. Treat this as a hint, not proof. Some firewalls verify bots by IP address, so a request from your laptop can behave differently from the real crawler.

### 4. Look at the raw HTML

Many AI crawlers don't run JavaScript the way a browser does. In a December 2024 study of crawler traffic on its network, Vercel found that OpenAI's and Anthropic's crawlers fetched JavaScript files but did not run them, while Google's Gemini and Apple's AppleBot did render JavaScript. Crawler behaviour changes, so treat that as a snapshot. If your pricing or product text is built in the browser, some crawlers may see an empty shell. Check:

```
curl -s https://yoursite.com/pricing | grep -i "per month"
```

Swap in a phrase that appears on the page. No match means the text isn't in the raw HTML. Server-rendering or pre-rendering the page fixes it.

### 5. Check status codes, redirects and noindex

Your key pages should return a `200`, should not chain through several redirects, and should not carry a `noindex` tag. Open the page source and search for "noindex".

## What good looks like

When you finish, you should be able to say three things. The search bots are allowed. The firewall lets them through. The facts you care about sit in the raw HTML. Fix those first. Content and structured data come next, and the rest of this series covers them.

Want to see what ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity say about your brand right now? Run the [free AI Visibility Score](/ai-visibility-score/).

## Sources

Last checked October 18, 2026. Crawler names and behaviour change, so confirm against the vendor pages before you write rules.

- [OpenAI: Overview of OpenAI crawlers](https://developers.openai.com/api/docs/bots)
- [Anthropic: Does Anthropic crawl data from the web?](https://support.claude.com/en/articles/8896518-does-anthropic-crawl-data-from-the-web-and-how-can-site-owners-block-the-crawler)
- [Perplexity: Perplexity crawlers](https://docs.perplexity.ai/guides/bots)
- [Google: Google's common crawlers (Google-Extended)](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/google-common-crawlers)
- [Vercel: The rise of the AI crawler (December 17, 2024)](https://vercel.com/blog/the-rise-of-the-ai-crawler)