Why We Tested GEO on Ourselves First
Acrion.ai sells AI SEO and GEO services to operationally complex businesses. Before asking a client to pay for AI search visibility, we wanted our own numbers: what moves, how fast, and what does not move no matter how clean the site is. This page is that record. Every number comes from Google Search Console, GA4, DataForSEO rank and backlink data, or live AI search prompts, pulled on the dates shown. Nothing is projected or borrowed from an industry benchmark.
If you are deciding where to spend first, our companion guide on GEO vs SEO explains how the two differ and where they overlap.
The Starting Point
- A July 10, 2026 GEO audit scored the site 51/100 overall. Technical GEO scored 92/100: every major AI crawler allowed, llms.txt live, pages fully server-rendered. Brand authority scored 18/100.
- On August 25, 2026: 10 referring domains, domain rank 0, and a Brand Authority Score of 16/100 (our rubric across Wikipedia, Reddit, YouTube, LinkedIn, and industry sources).
- Google Search Console, 28 days to August 22: 11 clicks, essentially all branded or legacy.
- Asked "best AI receptionist for home care agencies," AI search did not mention Acrion.ai.
In short: a site built to be read by AI systems, with almost nothing outside the site for those systems to trust.
What We Changed
- July 10, 2026Baseline GEO audit. Confirmed crawler access, llms.txt, and server rendering were already in place, and that brand authority and content trust were the weak points.
- August 21, 2026New pages written in the words buyers actually search with. Daily impressions went from 15 to 40 a day to 250 to 415 a day once they indexed.
- August 25, 2026Citability pass on /home-care, /ai-lead-qualification, and /calculator: a direct answer in the first 100 words, quotable definition blocks, and stat callouts from real case-study numbers. Launched /knoxville with LocalBusiness and FAQ schema. Updated llms.txt and llms-full.txt.
- August 26, 2026Published first-party AI answering statistics: 11 verbatim case-study figures with Dataset and Article schema and a methodology note. Added Google's Preferred Sources button to the homepage and blog posts.
- September 7, 2026Added a CC BY 4.0 license to the Dataset schema. Extended FAQPage schema to 8 questions on /ai-receptionist and /home-care. Published the full name, address, and phone on /contact.
- September 17, 2026Repositioned the site and launched 7 new URLs. All 7 were indexed by September 20.
- September 28, 2026Rebuilt the national rank tracker. First complete baseline: 150 of 150 keywords measured on desktop and mobile.
Results So Far
Latest data pulled September 29, 2026. Google figures are 28-day windows.
| Metric | Before | Latest |
|---|---|---|
| Google impressions (28 days) | 4,370 (to Sep 4) | 7,640 (to Sep 27) |
| Non-branded clicks (28 days) | About 6 | About 12 |
| Keywords ranking in the top 100 | 9 | 25 |
| Organic sessions, GA4 (28 days) | 10 (Aug 4 to 31) | 36 (Sep 1 to 28) |
| AI Overview citations | 0 | 1 ("home care intake") |
| Category AI answers naming Acrion.ai | 0 | 0 of 6 |
| Brand Authority Score | 16/100 (Aug 25) | 17/100 |
| Referring domains (legitimate) | 10 (1) | 16 (1) |
| /geo impressions and average position | 40 at 11.3 | 45 at 8.6 |
Two honest caveats on that table. First, most of the impression growth came from one answering-service post written for small businesses in general, which went from 1,924 to 4,413 impressions. Second, the AI Overview citation went to our home care client intake post, a page none of our GEO changes touched. Google cites it in the AI Overview for "home care intake" while the same page ranks 42nd in the organic results. We report it because it happened, not because we can claim it.
The clearest pattern is on-page. When we scored pages for citability (how easily an AI system can lift and quote a passage), the pages carrying named, first-party numbers scored highest: our statistics page 79/100 and our caregiver credential tracking page 72/100. Our own /geo page, with no statistics at all, scored 50/100.
What Has Not Moved Yet
- AI answers. We test 6 category prompts every month, from "best AI receptionist for home care agencies" to "AI automation company Knoxville." Acrion.ai appears in 0 of 6. Across those prompts, AI search cited 34 distinct URLs, and none were ours.
- Authority. Referring domains rose from 10 to 16, but 15 of the 16 belong to a spam scraper network we ignore. The only legitimate referring domain is g2.com, and that has been true for five straight months.
- Brand Authority Score. 16 to 17 out of 100. The single point came from newly detected review-site listings, not real growth. No Wikipedia, Reddit, or YouTube presence.
- Business results. Organic search has produced $0 in revenue and 0 booked calls so far. All 7 September inquiries came from referrals and existing relationships, not search.
- Our own execution. We sent zero outreach pitches in September. The target list is right; the pipe was empty.
This is the main lesson, and it is the one we now tell clients first. Technical GEO makes a site readable. It does not make a business trusted. AI answers draw on sources outside your website, and a technically perfect site with one legitimate referring domain stays out of those answers.
What We Are Doing Next
- Reviews. A review drive on G2, which syncs to Capterra, GetApp, and Software Advice, the vendor-review sites AI answers cite for vendor questions.
- Non-competing publishers. Pitches to industry publishers and software partners that AI search already cites, never to competing vendors.
- First-party numbers on every money page. Starting with /geo, the page that sells this work and had the lowest citability score.
- Local presence. Google Business Profile verification for Knoxville, where /knoxville went from 9 to 140 impressions after its rewrite and now ranks 4th on mobile for "ai automation knoxville."
- The same measurement every month. The same 6 prompts, the same tracker panel, the same scoring, so the next update to this page is a real comparison.
Want the same diagnosis for your business: where AI search finds you, where it does not, and what is actually holding you back? We will walk through it with you on a short call.
Talk Through Your WorkflowSources: Google Search Console (sc-domain:acrion.ai), GA4, DataForSEO ranked keywords and backlinks, and live AI search prompts, pulled September 29, 2026 unless another date is shown. Baseline audit dated July 10, 2026. Citability and Brand Authority scores use Acrion's internal rubrics. One site, one quarter: results will differ by industry, domain age, and existing authority.