A lab that tests AI-search tools it doesn't sell
geo/aeo playbooks exists to answer one question honestly: what actually earns a citation inside an AI answer? We run the audits, test the tools, and publish what moves the needle — not what pays a commission.
The search box became an answer box
For twenty years, SEO meant earning a rank. Now a growing share of buyers never see ten blue links — they read one AI-generated answer and act on whoever it cites. GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) and AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) are the disciplines for earning that citation, and the tooling around them is loud, young, and mostly selling itself.
This lab is the counterweight. We buy or trial the tools like anyone else, run them against real sites, and report the measurement. The only thing we sell is our own audit — and we disclose that everywhere it comes up. Independence is the entire value; the day we start selling the tools we review, this stops being worth reading.
- ✓ In search since 2009 — from junior specialist to Head of SEO
- ✓ Built and ranked his first website in 2007
- ✓ B.Sc. Physics & Computer Science, Belarusian State Pedagogical University (2008)
- ✓ Runs first-hand GEO/SEO audits — the practice behind every review here
I'm Mikhail Kuzmitskii, and I run the audits myself
I've worked in search since 2009 — starting as a junior specialist and ending up Head of SEO — after building and ranking my first site back in 2007. My background is physics and computer science, which in practice is just a habit I never dropped: form a hypothesis, run the experiment, read the data, then decide.
That discipline is exactly what AI search needs right now. The target moved — it's no longer a rank, it's whether ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google's AI Overviews name you inside the answer — but the method didn't. Every playbook and every tool review here is downstream of a real GEO/SEO audit: I sample prompts across the engines, check who gets cited, and trace it back to the pages and signals that earned it.
When a free tool does the job, I say so. When a paid one is worth it, I show the measurement. I don't sell the tools I test — that independence is the whole point. The one thing I do sell is the GEO audit, and it's the same work, done for your domain instead of a test one.
The method behind every review
The free checker scores 5 signals — llms.txt, crawler access, answer-first structure, JSON-LD schema, entity clarity. In an audit a human re-runs each one and reads the why behind the score, not just the pass/fail.
Visibility isn't a rank — it's whether ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google's AI Overviews cite you inside the answer. We sample real buyer prompts on each and measure who actually gets named.
Tools and engines change weekly. Each finding carries the date it was checked and the source it came from, so you can tell a current result from a stale one.
We review checkers, rank trackers and GEO platforms we don't own. When a free option does the job we say so; the audit we do sell is disclosed as such, and the verdicts don't follow the commissions.
See where you stand — free
Run your domain through the 5-signal checker and get an AI-visibility score in seconds.
Check your visibility →Want a human on it?
A full independent audit: the checker run by hand, cross-engine prompt sampling, and a fix roadmap you own.
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