AI search optimisation services, engine by engine
The short answer
AI search optimisation services make a business visible in AI-generated answers: Google AI Overviews and AI Mode, ChatGPT search, Perplexity, Gemini and Microsoft Copilot. Because the engines mostly cite different sources — in one 161,286-prompt study only 3.8% of cited domains were shared by all four major engines — the work has to be checked and measured per engine. Ours covers five things: access (can each engine's crawler reach you, and has anything switched you off), measurement on a fixed prompt set, the citation map, off-site placements, and on-site content. A fixed audit is $2,500 + GST; an ongoing programme is $3,500–$7,500 a month + GST.
- Each engine has its own crawler, index and controls. A setting that is right for one can remove you from another.
- Google added a Search Console switch on 31 August 2026 that can exclude a site from AI Overviews and AI Mode. We check it first.
- Google calls optimising for its AI features "still SEO" and says llms.txt, special schema and content chunking do nothing for Google Search.
- We measure each engine separately and report citation share, not a composite score.
Why it has to be done engine by engine
Treating “AI search” as one channel is the most common and most expensive mistake in this work. The engines retrieve from different indexes through different crawlers, and they cite different things as a result. In Writesonic’s 2026 study, 72–73% of cited domains appeared on exactly one engine. Google’s two AI features are not even consistent with each other: Ahrefs found AI Mode and AI Overviews cited the same URLs only 13.7% of the time.
So a service that measures one engine and reports it as “your AI visibility” is measuring a sample of one. The mechanics are covered in how AI engines choose their sources; this page is about what we do with them.
What we check and work on, per engine
| Engine | Access checks | Where gaps usually are | What usually moves it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Google AI Overviews | Indexing and snippet eligibility; nosnippet and max-snippet rules; the Search Console generative AI control |
Pages that rank but answer the question in paragraph six | Answer-first rewrites of pages already ranking; mentions on the pages Google already cites |
| Google AI Mode | As above; it uses different models, so it is measured separately | Comparison and “which is best for” questions | Clear comparison content with real numbers; third-party roundups |
| ChatGPT search | OAI-SearchBot allowed, including at firewall and CDN level; Bing indexing |
Absent from the roundups and directories it retrieves | Earned placements and directory presence; the ChatGPT playbook |
| Perplexity | PerplexityBot allowed |
Usually the most search-like engine, so weak search visibility shows here first | Ranking work on the specific sub-questions; source pages with citations of their own |
| Gemini app | The Google-Extended decision, which also governs Gemini Apps grounding |
Sites that blocked Google-Extended to opt out of training and dropped out of Gemini answers | Reversing that choice if Gemini matters to you; then the same Google work |
| Microsoft Copilot | Bing indexing, Bing Webmaster Tools, IndexNow | Sites never verified in Bing at all | Bing basics, then the AI Performance report to see which grounding queries cite you |
The five service lines
1. Access audit. Every crawler, every control, every setting that can silently remove you. It is the cheapest part of the work and occasionally the whole answer: a site that blocked the wrong bot, or had the Search Console AI control switched to exclude, will not be fixed by anything else on this list.
2. Measurement. A fixed prompt set of 30–50 questions in your buyers’ words, run on each engine, recorded so it can be repeated identically. We report citation share and mention share per engine, never a blended score, because the engines do not move together.
3. The citation map. Every domain and page the engines quote for your category, by engine. This is the target list for the off-site work, and it is usually short.
4. Off-site work. Directory listings, review-profile build-out, and earned placement on the roundups and publications that appear on the map. Earned media is cited roughly 325% more than brand-owned content, which is why this line gets most of the hours in a programme.
5. On-site work. A small number of pages rebuilt so the answer comes first, the claims carry numbers and sources, and the headings match how the question is actually asked. We update existing pages before creating new ones.
What we will tell you not to buy
Google’s July 2026 guidance is unusually direct, and it saves money. For Google Search, “you don’t need to create new machine readable files, AI text files, markup, or Markdown”, “structured data isn’t required for generative AI search”, and “there’s no requirement to break your content into tiny pieces”. The best causal study of schema markup found no citation lift on any engine. If a proposal leads with any of these, it is leading with the cheap part.
How to start
The $2,500 + GST audit covers lines one to three and maps four and five, with a costed action list you can hand to anyone. The programme ($3,500–$7,500 a month + GST) does all five and re-measures monthly. If you want to see whether you appear at all before spending anything, the free check takes five minutes. We are based in Brisbane and deliver remotely across Australia; the same service is described for Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane businesses with what our measurement found in each city.
Questions people actually ask
Which AI search engine matters most for an Australian business?
It depends on where your buyers ask, which is why we measure rather than assume. Google's AI Overviews have the widest reach because they sit inside ordinary Google results; one US tracker found them on about 48% of tracked queries in early 2026. ChatGPT and Perplexity matter more for considered purchases where people ask for a shortlist. None of the large public studies separate out Australia, so the audit measures your category directly.
Can you guarantee a place in Google AI Overviews?
No. Google says there are no special requirements beyond being indexed and eligible for a snippet, and it chooses sources per query with techniques it does not publish. What we can do is remove anything stopping you appearing, make your pages the best answer to the narrower searches Google runs, and earn mentions on the pages it already cites.
Do you need access to Search Console or my website?
No. The access checks can be done from outside, and the Search Console AI setting takes you two minutes to check yourself; we tell you where it is. Read-only access helps if you want us to look at AI traffic in your reports, but nothing requires it.
Is AI search optimisation different from SEO?
For Google's own AI features, Google says it is the same discipline: "optimizing for generative AI search is optimizing for the search experience, and thus still SEO." The difference is emphasis. Assistants such as ChatGPT and Perplexity lean heavily on third-party pages, so a larger share of the work is earning mentions elsewhere rather than improving your own site.
Do you write AI-generated content at scale?
No. Google's guide says creating content for fan-out queries primarily to manipulate rankings or AI responses violates its scaled content abuse policy, and the research favours updating the pages that are already cited. We rebuild a small number of pages properly rather than publish many thin ones.
Sources
- Writesonic — AI citation source overlap across four engines, 161,286 prompts (22 Jul 2026)
- Google Search Central — Optimizing your website for generative AI features on Google Search (updated 10 Jul 2026)
- Google Search Central — AI features and your website
- Google Search Console Help — Search generative AI control
- Google — common crawlers, including Google-Extended
- OpenAI — Overview of OpenAI crawlers
- Perplexity Docs — Perplexity crawlers
- Microsoft Learn — web search in Microsoft Copilot
- Bing Webmaster Blog — AI Performance in Bing Webmaster Tools (10 Feb 2026)
- BrightEdge — AI Overviews at the one-year mark (12 Feb 2026)
- Ahrefs — AI Mode vs AI Overviews cite the same URLs 13.7% of the time (15 Dec 2025)