How to Vet a GEO Agency: 9 Questions That Separate Real Work From Rebranded SEO

Why vetting a GEO agency is harder than vetting an SEO agency

With SEO, you could check rankings yourself in a minute. With AI search, answers change by engine, by wording and by day. That makes it easy for an agency to show one flattering screenshot and call it proof.

Buyers notice. A common complaint in marketing communities is that most "GEO agencies" they talk to turn out to be SEO agencies with new branding. The questions below are designed to expose that quickly.

9 questions to ask any GEO agency

• Which buyer questions will you track, and can I see the full list before we start? A real program locks a fixed set of prompts so results can be compared month to month.
• Which AI engines do you measure? Look for named surfaces such as ChatGPT Search, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, AI Mode and Microsoft Copilot, not "AI" in general.
• Can you show raw results, with dates and the exact prompt wording? Screenshots without timestamps are not evidence.
• How do you tell a citation apart from a recommendation? Being linked as a source is not the same as being named as the answer. Ask how each is counted.
• What is our baseline today? You should get a measured starting point before any work begins.
• What will you change on our site, and what will you do off our site? GEO depends heavily on third-party sources AI engines trust, not just your own pages.
• How long until we should see movement, and what does early movement look like? Honest answers name a range and leading signals.
• What do you refuse to guarantee? Anyone promising a #1 spot in ChatGPT is guessing.
• What does it cost, and is that written down? Published or clearly quoted pricing is a sign the scope is real.

Red flags that point to rebranded SEO

• Reports show keyword rankings and traffic only, with no AI answer data.
• Guaranteed placements or "rank #1 in ChatGPT" promises.
• No fixed prompt list, so every report measures something different.
• Results shown as single screenshots with no dates.
• The plan is mostly blog posts, with no work on outside sources or entity consistency.
• Pricing only revealed after several sales calls.

How to handle price and timeline doubts

Paying thousands a month before seeing results feels risky, and it should be questioned. Two things reduce that risk: a measured baseline you can check yourself, and a short list of leading signals the agency commits to reporting in the first 60 to 90 days, such as new citations on trusted third-party sources.

If an agency cannot tell you what early progress looks like, you will have no way to judge it later. Compare written pricing across shortlisted firms; our own retainers are listed on the pricing page.

A simple way to test an agency before you sign

Pick five questions your buyers really ask an AI assistant. Ask each shortlisted agency to show where you appear today for those five, in two engines, with dates. Then ask what they would change first and why. The quality of that answer tells you more than any case study deck.