Is Your Agency Selling Rebranded SEO as GEO? 7 Questions

Is your agency’s “AI search” pitch just SEO with a new coat of paint?

Some agencies now sell “GEO” or “AEO” as a new service line, but the work underneath hasn’t changed. Law firm marketers at recent conferences report hearing AI search mentioned in every meeting while nothing in the actual deliverables shifts. Here are seven questions that separate real work from a relabeled invoice.

This matters because GEO work is harder to audit than traditional SEO. A keyword ranking is a number anyone can check in five minutes. An AI assistant’s answer changes by the hour, varies by region, and differs between ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google’s AI Overviews. That makes it easy for an agency to describe activity instead of outcomes — and easy for a managing partner to not know the difference until the invoice arrives.

Why this question matters right now

Consumer research behavior is moving fast. A July 2026 survey of 1,110 U.S. consumers found Google usage for researching attorneys fell from 86.7% to 71.9% in a single year, while ChatGPT usage climbed from 28.1% to 41.9% (iLawyer Marketing, 2026). At the same time, a separate analysis of law firm website traffic found AI referrals averaging just 0.47% of sessions (LawFuel, Sept 2026). Translation: consumers are asking AI assistants about attorneys more than ever, but most firms can’t yet see it in their own analytics. That gap is exactly where a relabeled SEO pitch hides. One industry breakdown put it plainly: some agencies talk about AI search “in every meeting” while “nothing they’re actually doing has changed” (MeasureMarketing, 2026).

7 questions to ask on your next agency call

1. Which exact prompts do you track, and across which AI assistants?

Real answer: a named list of prompts tied to your practice areas, tracked across more than one assistant (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, etc.), reviewed with you.
Dodge: “We monitor your AI visibility” with no prompt list and no named engines.

2. How many runs per prompt, and how often?

Real answer: a stated run frequency and count — AI answers vary run to run, so one-off checks are noise.
Dodge: “We checked and you showed up” — a single snapshot presented as a result.

3. Do you report brand mentions and linked citations separately?

Real answer: two distinct numbers — how often your firm is mentioned by name, and how often a response links to your site. This is the idea behind what we call Citation Share: mentions and citations never get blended into one inflated figure.
Dodge: a single combined “AI visibility score” that hides which number is actually moving.

4. What changed in our actual content because of this work?

Real answer: specific pages rewritten, specific structural changes made — not just a new report format.
Dodge: a shinier dashboard covering the same unchanged pages.

5. How do you structure pages differently for AI extraction versus classic SEO?

Real answer: a concrete explanation — direct-answer structure near the top, clear headings, extractable facts — distinct from keyword-density tactics.
Dodge: “We optimize for both” with no description of what’s actually different on the page.

6. What’s your plan when an AI engine’s behavior changes?

Real answer: an acknowledgment that engines update constantly and a stated process for re-checking and adjusting.
Dodge: silence, or an assumption that today’s approach works forever.

7. Can you show one provable before/after example?

Real answer: one specific page, one specific prompt, a documented change over time.
Dodge: vague claims about “overall improvement” with nothing you can verify yourself.

FAQ

Is GEO the same thing as SEO?

No. Classic SEO targets search engine rankings; GEO (generative engine optimization) targets how AI assistants summarize and cite your firm in conversational answers. They overlap but aren’t identical.

Why don’t AI referrals show up much in my analytics yet?

Research suggests AI-driven research is rising fast, but much of it doesn’t generate a trackable website click — someone asks an assistant, gets an answer, and calls the firm directly. That’s part of why relying on referral traffic alone to judge an agency’s GEO work is misleading.

What should I ask for in writing?

The specific prompts tracked, the engines covered, and separate mention/citation numbers — not a single blended score.

Not sure if your current agency’s GEO work is real? Run your site through our free SiteScan — it grades your site across five pages and rewrites the weakest one, so you can check their claims against an independent read of your own site.