Guides

Four different products get sold as "a brand mention in AI" — placement, PR and syndication, monitoring tools, and a one-off measurement. Here is what each one costs, what you receive, and which parts you can actually verify afterwards.

The order of operations for Google AI Overviews: measure first, fix the facts AI reads, get machine-readable, build presence in the sources answers are built from — then verify. Every step labelled prerequisite, lever or bonus.

Otterly, Semrush, Ahrefs Brand Radar and Peec — what each one tracks about your brand in AI answers, vendor prices checked October 2026, our price current as of 21 October 2026, and the honest ledger on subscriptions versus one-time measurement.

Free routes, four monthly tools and a one-time audit, with vendor prices read in October 2026 and our price current as of 21 October 2026 — and which one a small business should buy first.

Otterly, Semrush, Ahrefs Brand Radar and the free routes — what each one tracks, published prices checked October 2026, and the correctness problem none of them solve.

Thirty buyer questions across five AI surfaces, 176 verbatim answers, claim-by-claim fact checks, paste-ready fixes — the full list.

Five steps to check what AI tells buyers about your local business — and the honest line on what a self-check can and cannot fix.

An SEO audit asks whether Google can find you. A GEO audit asks whether AI assistants name you and describe you correctly. Complements, not rivals.

Seven published price points in the AI visibility market — free checkers, one-time reports, and monthly tools — and what each tier actually delivers.

Ranking in the local Map Pack no longer means AI Overviews name you. Why the two systems pick different sources — and how to check which one you're missing.

Otterly, Peec AI and Profound all bill monthly. See what a one-time $4.99 visibility audit covers instead — vendor prices checked September 2026, our price current as of 21 October 2026.

What an AI visibility (GEO) audit typically costs — from free checks to four-figure one-off audits and monthly retainers — what each tier actually delivers, and which one a single-location business needs.

When a one-time AI visibility report is enough, when subscription monitoring earns its monthly fee, and the five questions to ask before you subscribe to either.

What Google AI Overviews actually read when a local buyer asks, why the map pack is not the same thing, and the checks that decide whether you appear.

Assistants answer "how much does it cost?" even when your prices are unreadable to them — assembled from third parties. Measured evidence, and the fix that takes an afternoon.

Five things a real AI visibility audit measures, three red flags of a fake one, and what this market actually charges — published prices, checked.

There is no edit button. Wrong claims come from sources the assistant cites, so the fix is upstream — and the first step is knowing exactly what it says today.

What the measured med spa and family dental samples actually found, what transfers to dentists, and what only a measurement of your own market can tell you.

A repeatable DIY check for whether ChatGPT names your business when buyers ask — what to ask, how to ask, and the two ways DIY checks mislead.

What a real check consists of — buyer questions across tiers, more than one engine, fresh sessions — and the honest difference between a free check and a measurement.

llms.txt is the flagship deliverable of GEO packages. We scanned 34 head-of-market brands to see who has one, who wrote it, and whether it matters.

We measured a Nashville med spa across ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Google AI Overviews. Every number in this article is from that published report.