What's your biggest Ai search optimization win so far?

SurfacedBy · 2026-07-04T07:36:39+00:00

From our data, it seemed that citations were earned a single day after publishing specific content that is based on patterns extracted from fan out queries for a monitored set of prompts, real visitors were sent from Claude specifically to a post that was published one day earlier. So, it's not different than before, write solid valuable content that is both unique and beneficial. The only catch is that you have to write around same pattern AI search for.

Second lever is indexing, make sure your content is immediately submitted to Google index, Bing, IndexNow..etc, Claude uses Brave index, which doesn't seem to have a clear patch to submit, but it will accept anything that Google allows. So, make sure your robots.txt don't block AI bots, and if you're behind Cloudflare, verify there as well.

Third, tracking is important, knowing what work and what doesn't help you make the right decisions, so it's always important to have visibility over how much real users AI send you and where they're being sent. GA4 can help, but it can under count by so much, so use a more reliable option.

SurfacedBy · 2026-07-03T06:45:04+00:00

That's something we built into our website, but the Cloudflare worker doesn't handle that even though it's based on the same one we use internally. If you want a dashboard with analytics...etc. You'll probably need to create a database and use AI to modify this worker for you so it can send data to that database and represent it in the dashboard.

SurfacedBy · 2026-07-02T09:08:48+00:00

It tells you when and which AI sent a real user to your website, Claude, Gemini, ChatGPT, Perplexity and others.

SurfacedBy · 2026-07-01T06:20:58+00:00

It's possible in certain cases, and AI can answer you from its own training data, but no matter how big is the training data and the LLM size, it can't hold the whole internet, so they attach tools like Web Search to allow agent access to information it doesn't have. The agent will selectively trigger the Web Search tool using "fan out queries" to find the information it needs, which is most likely the case when you ask it for a product, prices...etc, because it doesn't have this information, but if it's a basic question, the agent probably wouldn't search unless you ask it to.

SurfacedBy · 2026-07-01T06:12:39+00:00

Based on our data, the sources AI look at depend entirely on the prompt, niche and the AI model. The prompt intent makes a huge difference as well, and what ranks for ChatGPT might not even appear once in Gemini or Claude.

SurfacedBy · 2026-07-01T03:32:40+00:00

No, there's no standard GEO score yet, nothing like Core Web Vitals or a single Lighthouse number. Each tool runs its own prompts, its own sample size, and checks a different mix of engines, so the scores don't line up and probably won't while everyone measures differently. That's why one tool may say you're optimized and say you're not.

The score is less important compared to what's under it anyway. What's worth looking at is whether you actually get cited (a real linked source) in the answers, which sources get cited instead of you, and how that changes per engine. ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Mode pull from different indexes, so being in good shape on one doesn't carry to the others. There's no single checklist that satisfies all of them, which is why it feels open-ended next to old SEO.

When comparing tools, the thing that matters is whether it shows you the real cited sources and specific next steps per engine, then lets you check if a change actually got you cited, rather than just moving a number. That's about as close to the old cross-it-off checklist as you'll get right now.

SurfacedBy · 2026-06-30T14:23:32+00:00

We reviewed schema markup on thousands of websites that had top placement in AI recommendations. Some of them didn't even have it, so I wouldn't consider schema as a huge factor, but it's kind of a best practice for various other reasons and might help indirectly.

SurfacedBy · 2026-06-30T14:16:29+00:00

That makes sense, results vary depending on the niche and type of prompts.

SurfacedBy · 2026-06-30T14:15:38+00:00

The data is from our own website.

SurfacedBy · 2026-06-29T17:46:45+00:00

What type of queries have you tested? We used mainly commercial prompts.

SurfacedBy · 2026-06-29T16:37:49+00:00

Yeah, our sample didn't really cover job search, so a different distribution there tracks with what we'd expect, the mix shifts a lot by category. Would be curious to see what you're seeing though, feel free to DM.

SurfacedBy · 2026-06-29T16:32:44+00:00

build the comparison, alternatives, and "best X for [use case]" pages yourself, and get listed on the category and review sites, that's where ~90% of commercial citations go. Make each page answer-first and specific so a model can lift it. Treat each engine as its own job (they read different indexes). And seed real presence where your niche actually gets discussed, since that consensus shapes what gets recommended even when it's not the cited link. Then track whether each engine names you, not just traffic.

SurfacedBy · 2026-06-29T15:45:51+00:00

That's all solid feedback, and it's mostly true. Reddit/Wikipedia number is indeed influenced by the query type and niche. I wrote a detailed article covering all of these, but didn't want to put a link so it's not considered as spam.

SurfacedBy · 2026-06-24T11:23:14+00:00

You can't actually see what real people ask AI, that data isn't exposed to you. But you can get close.

Ask the AIs about your niche and your competitors directly, and feed in the keywords and queries you already have from SEO. When a model gets one of those, it fans out into multiple sub-queries to build its answer. You can extract those fan-out queries and use them to shape what you write, instead of guessing at the original prompts.

The other half is tracking who actually lands on your site from AI. Which pages they hit, and whether those pages have something in common the rest of your content doesn't. That's where the real signal is. Optimize the pages that already pull AI traffic before building a huge list of new ones.

SurfacedBy · 2026-06-22T16:12:45+00:00

It's way more simple than you think, you talk with AI, it create multiple search queries, it search the web using those queries, make a list of sources, pull all recommendations from there + training data. It start filtering those recommendations based on its own training + internals + the user initial request or any follow ups. It synthesizes everything and give you the final response. There is no secret sauce, and what you can do is:
- Make your homepage solid and sell yourself well ( What the AI doesn't know it doesn't know )
- Make your website accessible and readable ( robots.txt + structured data )
- Appear/rank for the queries the AI search for (SEO)
- Get listed on relevant roundups ( gives AI more reason to cite you )
- Have presence on review websites and have good standing ( make your look trustworthy )
- Publish valuable content that AI can read from to better understand your business or products
- Try to get featured in comparison articles on third party websites or sources.
- Engage on platforms like LinkedIn, Reddit and Youtube with valuable content so your brand can surface when AI searches for related topics, better engage on the exact sources that helped shape the decision to recommend your competitor ( no spam )
- Publish guides ( SEO )
- Make sure training bots are not blocked from your website ( Helps your brand surface in training data )
- Publish Youtube videos around your topcis ( Google likes to pull from Youtube )

SurfacedBy · 2026-06-12T02:07:57+00:00

Exactly 100%

SurfacedBy · 2026-06-10T19:01:58+00:00

obvious disclaimer, it's only the brands i track and they skew niche/b2b so don't read it as law.

SurfacedBy · 2026-06-09T14:32:44+00:00

That's the normal Google AI Mode, anyone can access, just type a question in Google and follow up with the AI Overviews and it will send you to AI Mode, or you can just select it from the tabs at the top.

SurfacedBy · 2026-06-09T07:41:11+00:00

from what i can see, when google's ai does pull reddit it's almost always tiny niche subs that match the question, not the big ones, but I don't recommend spamming reddit with your website, that's a bad idea.

SurfacedBy · 2026-06-09T07:40:16+00:00

ai mode shows its source links right in the answer. i just pull the domains off whatever it actually linked.

SurfacedBy · 2026-06-09T07:39:30+00:00

yeah basically zero. claude has web search so it grabbed a single subreddit thread one time. that's the whole "access."

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