AEO guides: everything we know, published
Every figure in these guides links to the study it came from, including the studies that are inconvenient for people selling AEO. Nothing here is gated — in one controlled test, gated material earned 14 citations where open equivalents earned 1,847.
Data
AI Citation Index — Australia (data, monthly)Who AI engines actually cite for 29 Australian AEO questions: 587 citations, 343 domains in the October 2026 edition, and our own score. Raw CSV included.AEO agencies in Australia, ranked by AI citationsWho the engines actually cite for ten hiring questions, ranked by measurement only. The self-ranked lists are counted separately. We are in the table at zero.The evidence baseEvery claim we make about AI citations, with the study, sample size and measured effect.
Guides
Does schema markup help AI citations?Ahrefs tested 1,885 pages that added JSON-LD schema and measured no meaningful citation lift on any AI engine. Here is the study, the counter-evidence, and what to do instead.How ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Overviews choose their sourcesEngine by engine, from the vendors' own documentation and the largest independent studies: where each AI engine gets its candidate pages, which crawler controls access, and why they cite such different sources.What actually drives AI citationsEarned media beats your own website by 325%. Review profiles take brands from 1% to 75.3% of answers. The full ranked list of what moves AI citations, with effect sizes and sources.How to get your business cited by ChatGPTThe seven steps that get a business named and cited in ChatGPT answers, in the order the evidence ranks them: crawler access, Bing indexing, measurement, third-party mentions, quotable pages, entity work and re-measurement.What AEO costs in AustraliaAustralian AEO retainers run $3,000–$8,000 a month, audits $1,500–$5,000 and enterprise programmes $10,000–$25,000. What sits inside those numbers, and which line items are worth paying for.Is AEO worth it in 2026? The evidence, both sidesWhether answer engine optimisation is worth paying for in 2026: the evidence that AI answers take clicks and shape shortlists, the evidence that AI traffic is still tiny, Australian adoption data, and a break-even table.AI visibility tools comparedReal pricing and honest trade-offs for the main AI citation tracking platforms in 2026 — Profound, Peec AI, Scrunch and Otterly — plus when you do not need one at all.How to check whether ChatGPT mentions your brandA free manual method for measuring whether AI assistants name and cite your business: how to build the prompt set, why a logged-out session matters, and how to score mention and citation separately.GEO vs AEO vs SEO: three labels, two jobsSEO, answer engine optimisation (AEO) and generative engine optimisation (GEO) defined side by side: where each term came from, what the research behind GEO found, what Google says, and the Australian acronym traps.AEO vs SEO: what changes, and how to split the budgetAI referrals are 1–6% of traffic, growing fast, and convert at about the same rate as organic search. Only 37.9% of AI-cited URLs now rank on page one. What that means for how you split a marketing budget.How to choose an AEO agency in AustraliaAbout 40 Australian agencies now offer answer engine optimisation and five have published a methodology. The questions that separate them, and the answers that should end the conversation.
Services, sectors and cities
AI SEO agency in Australia: what you are actually buyingWhat an AI SEO agency in Australia should do to get you cited by ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Overviews, what it costs, and three five-minute tests to run before you hire one.AI search optimisation services, engine by engineWhat AI search optimisation services should cover for Google AI Overviews and AI Mode, ChatGPT search, Perplexity, Gemini and Copilot: access checks, per-engine measurement, the citation map, off-site and on-site work. Australian pricing.AEO agency in Sydney: AI search optimisation without the Sydney overheadsAnswer engine optimisation for Sydney businesses, delivered remotely from Brisbane. What AI engines cited for Sydney AI search questions in September 2026, what a Sydney firm should ask, and published prices.AEO agency in Melbourne: the most crowded AI SEO answer we measuredAnswer engine optimisation for Melbourne businesses, delivered remotely from Brisbane. Why the Melbourne AI SEO answer is the most fragmented in Australia, what that means for you, and what to ask before you hire.AEO agency in Brisbane: what AI engines cite here, and what to askA Brisbane-based answer engine optimisation (AEO) practice. What AI engines cited for "AEO consultant Brisbane" in our September 2026 run, what a Brisbane business should ask before hiring, and how remote delivery works.AEO for professional services firmsAnswer engine optimisation for Australian accountants, lawyers, financial advisers, engineers and architects: the registers and directories AI engines can use to verify you, the advertising rules that limit what you can publish, and what to do first.AEO for ecommerce: how products get recommended in AI answersAnswer engine optimisation for Australian online stores: how ChatGPT, Google AI Mode and Perplexity choose products, what is and is not available to Australian merchants in October 2026, the evidence on whether AI shopping traffic sells, and what to fix first.
Find out where you stand in AI answers
1
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Five minutes. It builds the prompts a buyer would type, you paste the answers back, and it scores mention and citation separately. Runs in your browser; nothing you type is sent to us.
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Send one buyer question for a free snapshot by email, or enquire about the $2,500 + GST audit or a monthly programme. Written reply within two business days; no call required.
Send an enquiryPrices are published: audit $2,500 + GST fixed, programme $3,500–$7,500 a month + GST. So is our own score: the AI Citation Index for Australia shows who AI engines cite for AEO questions, and the measured agency ranking puts us where the data does — at zero.