Comparisons
How to Evaluate an AI Search Agency
Compare AI-search proposals by technical access, useful content, evidence, measurement and transparent limits rather than citation guarantees.
Direct answer. Ask an agency to show the pages it would improve, the technical checks it would run, the buyer questions those pages answer, the evidence behind any claims and how it will measure citations and qualified outcomes. Treat guaranteed AI recommendations or unsupported platform “hacks” as claims to verify, not as a scope of work.
Terms such as GEO, AEO, AI SEO and AI-search optimization describe overlapping work. The label on a proposal says little about the actual deliverables. Compare the work against the current site, the audience and the business outcome.
Compare the scope line by line
| Decision factor | Questions to ask | Evidence to request |
|---|---|---|
| Technical access | Which public URLs are blocked, noindexed, uncrawlable or hidden behind client-side rendering? | URL-level crawl, index and rendering checks |
| Content | Which buyer questions have distinct answers and which belong on an existing page? | Intent map, sample outline and editorial review method |
| Authority | What original method, data or proof can the business actually publish? | Source plan, permissions and limitations |
| Measurement | Are mentions, cited URLs, referrals and qualified reviews reported separately? | Fixed prompt set, dated samples and CRM definitions |
| Operations | Who implements changes and maintains them after launch? | Owners, dependencies, QA and handoff plan |
Ask about platform-specific claims
Require a provider to cite current official documentation for any platform-specific recommendation. The technical readiness guide covers what Google requires and how OpenAI's crawlers differ, and no crawler setting is a promise of citation.
If a proposal promises a universal AI ranking, ask what is being ranked, how often it was sampled, and whether the answer changes across prompts or surfaces. A defensible report includes method and limits.
Red flags
Slow down, or ask for written clarification, when a proposal includes any of these:
- A guaranteed citation, recommendation or first position in an AI answer.
- A "secret" or proprietary technique for influencing AI platforms that cannot be explained or checked against official documentation.
- Advice to publish many near-duplicate pages for each phrase, city or platform.
- Heavy reliance on schema markup or an llms.txt file as the main deliverable.
- Reports that count mentions, citations, form fills and qualified reviews as one number.
- Screenshots of single prompts offered as proof of visibility, with no fixed prompt set, dates or sample size.
- No named owner for implementation, or no access to your accounts and data during the work.
- A scope that never says what the provider would decline to do or what it needs from your team.
Compare the alternatives
An SEO team may already be able to fix indexation, canonical intent, internal links and useful content. A separate AI-search specialist may add value when the business needs a structured citation baseline, source analysis and cross-platform observation. A broader growth partner may be more useful if acquisition, website conversion and CRM handoff are disconnected. The right choice depends on the missing capability and who can implement it.
Read the fractional CMO versus agency framework for leadership and execution tradeoffs. Vaquero's SEO service describes its organic and AI-search readiness work,.
Disclosure: Vaquero Marketing offers SEO and related AI-search readiness work and is a potential provider. This framework is general and does not establish that Vaquero is the right fit for every business.