Hiring an AI SEO agency: the honest UK guide

What does an AI SEO agency do?

Google lists "optimizing for generative AI" among the useful services an SEO can offer, alongside site reviews, technical advice, content development and keyword research (Google: Do you need an SEO?). So an AI SEO agency is best thought of as an SEO agency that takes AI answers seriously, not a different kind of business.

AI visibility readiness checker: how ready is your website?

How the score is calculated

1. Each of the 18 checks has points (below), adding up to 100.
2. Yes scores the full points, Partly scores half, No (or no answer) scores nothing.
3. The total is rounded to the nearest whole number (halves round up).
4. Result: 90 or more = Ready, 70 or more = Mostly ready, 40 or more = Partly ready, below 40 = Not ready yet.
5. If either of the first two crawler-access checks isn't a full Yes, the result can't be better than Partly ready, because AI tools can't use pages they can't reach.
6. Your top fixes are the checks you haven't fully done, biggest points first.

The points are our own judgement of what matters most, based on the official guidance linked below. No AI company publishes a readiness score, and a high score doesn't guarantee you'll be cited. Nothing you enter is sent anywhere: the checker runs in your browser.

Share or save your answers: the link under your result reproduces it. Format: ?answers= followed by 18 letters (y = Yes, p = Partly, n = No) in question order, for example https://ukaiseoagency.co.uk/?answers=yyyyyyyyynnnnnnnnn scores 60 (Partly ready).

Is AI SEO different from traditional SEO?

Source for Google's position: Optimizing your website for generative AI features on Google Search.

GEO, AEO, LLM SEO: what do the names mean?

Generative engine optimisation (GEO) and AI search optimisation are the terms you'll see most in UK agency proposals. Ask what work sits behind the label.

How do AI tools choose which websites to cite?

1. CrawlThe tool's crawler fetches your page (if robots.txt and your firewall allow it).
2. IndexThe page is stored in a search index: Google's, Bing's or the AI company's own.
3. Fan outYour question is rewritten into several related searches.
4. RetrieveRelevant pages are pulled back by the search systems.
5. GroundThe AI model writes an answer based on those pages.
6. CiteSome of the pages used are shown as links or sources.

Simplified picture of retrieval-based AI search, based on Google's and the AI companies' own descriptions. Each product differs in detail.

What isn't published

The good news is that what Google does say is consistent and practical: make content that is "unique, valuable" and "non-commodity", keep the technical basics right, and don't chase hacks (Google). Bing gives similar advice for being cited: clear structure, depth and expertise, evidence and cited sources, and fresh content (Bing Webmaster Blog).

Which AI crawlers should your robots.txt allow?

A simple robots.txt that welcomes AI search

# Welcome search engines and AI assistants
User-agent: *
Allow: /

User-agent: OAI-SearchBot
Allow: /

User-agent: PerplexityBot
Allow: /

User-agent: Claude-SearchBot
Allow: /

Sitemap: https://www.example.co.uk/sitemap.xml

Rules for * already cover every crawler; naming the AI search crawlers just makes your intention obvious. Then check the bit most people miss: your hosting, CDN or firewall. Google lists "ensuring that crawling is allowed in robots.txt, and by any CDN or hosting infrastructure" as an SEO basic for its AI features, and Perplexity publishes instructions for letting its bots through Cloudflare and AWS firewalls.

Does llms.txt help you appear in AI answers?

• llms.txt is a proposal, not a standard: a plain Markdown file at /llms.txt that summarises a site and links to its key pages for AI tools. It was first written in 2024 and is maintained at llmstxt.org.
• Google says Google Search doesn't use llms.txt, and that creating one "will neither harm nor help" your visibility in Google Search, including its AI features.
• Some AI companies publish llms.txt files for their own developer documentation (OpenAI's crawler documentation links to one), and some tools read them. No AI search company we checked documents using llms.txt to choose which sites to cite.
• Our view: it takes minutes to add and does no harm (this site has one), but don't pay an agency for it as an AI ranking fix.

Sources: llmstxt.org, Google AI optimisation guide, OpenAI crawler documentation.

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What do AI SEO services include?

Sources: Google AI features and your website, Google AI optimisation guide, Google spam policies, Bing AI Performance announcement, CMA fake reviews guidance.

How do you measure AI visibility?

How much does an AI SEO agency cost?

What drives the price

What to get in writing before you sign

• Exactly what's included each month, in hours or deliverables
• Which reports you'll get and which official tools they come from
• Minimum term, notice period and what happens to your content and accounts if you leave
• Whether tool subscriptions, content writing and PR are included or extra
• Prices with and without VAT

Ask two or three agencies to quote for the same written brief, so you can compare like with like. Our free AI visibility check gives you a starting brief.

How long does AI SEO take to work?

1. AuditCheck access, indexing, listings and what AI tools currently say about you. Set a baseline.
2. Fix accessUnblock crawlers, fix indexing problems, set up Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools.
3. ImproveRewrite the pages that matter most so they answer questions directly with real facts.
4. Build trustConsistent listings, genuine reviews, earned mentions.
5. MeasureCompare AI impressions, citations, prompt checks and enquiries with the baseline.
6. RefineKeep content current and repeat what's working.

Be sceptical of fixed promises like "cited by ChatGPT in 30 days". The honest answer is a plan, a baseline and regular measurement.

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What are the red flags when hiring an AI SEO agency?

• Promises of a top spot or a guaranteed AI recommendationGoogle: "No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google." No AI company publishes a way to buy or guarantee a place in its unpaid answers. Ads are separate and labelled. (source)
• "Secret" or "proprietary" methods they won't explainGoogle advises caution if a company is secretive or won't clearly explain what it intends to do. You're responsible for what they do to your site. (source)
• Claims of a special relationship, partnership or "approved" toolGoogle says it doesn't evaluate or endorse third-party SEO tools and no third-party tool has access to its internal ranking or AI systems. (source)
• Buying links or link "packages"Buying or selling links for ranking purposes is link spam under Google's spam policies. (source)
• Fake reviews, paid "mentions" or planted forum postsGoogle says inauthentic mentions aren't as helpful as they might seem. Fake reviews break UK consumer protection law. (source)
• Hundreds of AI-written pages for every question variationGoogle names creating content for every fan-out query primarily to manipulate AI responses as a breach of its scaled content abuse policy. (source)
• llms.txt, "AI schema" or "chunking" sold as the main fixGoogle says Search ignores llms.txt, there's no special schema for its AI features and you don't need to chunk content. (source)
• Reports built only on their own "AI visibility score"Ask for first-party data too: Search Console, Bing Webmaster Tools and your enquiries. (source)
• Asking for full control of Search Console at the audit stageGoogle suggests granting read access only for an audit. (source)
• Cold emails saying "you're invisible in ChatGPT"Google advises being wary of SEO firms that email you out of the blue. (source)
• Long lock-in before they've audited anythingA good agency can explain what it will do in the first month before asking for a long contract.

Google also reminds site owners that "you are responsible for the actions of any companies you hire" (Google). If an agency breaks the spam policies on your behalf, it's your site that suffers.

What should you ask an AI SEO agency before you sign?

1. Which official guidance do you follow?Listen for Google's AI optimisation guide, Bing's webmaster guidance and the AI companies' crawler documentation. Google suggests asking whether an SEO cites official documentation.
2. What will you change in the first month, and will you tell me about every change?You want a specific list, not "we'll optimise your site".
3. How will you measure success?Expect named reports (Search Console, Bing Webmaster Tools), prompt checks with dates, and enquiries, not just a score from their own tool.
4. What results do you expect, in what timeframe, and what could stop that?A straight answer includes the risks.
5. Can I see examples of your work and speak to a past client?Google's hiring advice suggests asking for examples and checking references.
6. Do you buy links, reviews or mentions?The answer should be a clear no.
7. Do you use AI to write content? Who checks it?AI-assisted content is fine if it's accurate and useful; ask who is accountable for the facts.
8. Who owns the content, accounts and data if we stop working together?It should be you.
9. What's the minimum term and notice period?Get it in writing before you start.
10. What experience do you have in my industry and area?Local, national and e-commerce work need different skills.
11. What do you need from us?Time for interviews, access, approvals, real examples and data.
12. What won't you do?A good agency will say what's out of scope and what it doesn't recommend.

Do you need an AI SEO agency, or can you do it yourself?

AI SEO checklist for small businesses

Total: 18 checks. If you can tick them all, you're ahead of most small businesses, and you'll be a much better-informed buyer if you do hire an agency.

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AI SEO glossary

AI Overviews

AI-generated summaries at the top of some Google results, with links to supporting pages. Google says they only appear when they add something to classic results.

AI Mode

Google's conversational AI search for longer, more complex questions and follow-ups, with links to supporting sites.

AI SEO

Search engine optimisation that also aims for visibility in AI-generated answers.

GEO

Generative engine optimisation: improving how often your content is used and cited in AI-generated answers.

AEO

Answer engine optimisation: making content easy for answer engines and assistants to quote.

LLM

Large language model: the AI model behind tools such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude.

LLM SEO

Another name for optimising content to be found and cited by tools built on LLMs.

Grounding (RAG)

Retrieval-augmented generation: the AI fetches real web pages and bases its answer on them, rather than on memory alone.

Query fan-out

When an AI tool splits one question into several related searches to gather more sources.

Citation

A link or source shown alongside an AI answer.

AI visibility

How often, and how accurately, your business appears in AI answers.

Crawler / user agent

A program that fetches web pages, identified by a name such as Googlebot or OAI-SearchBot.

robots.txt

A file at the root of your site telling crawlers which pages they may fetch.

llms.txt

A proposed Markdown file summarising a site for AI tools. Not a standard; Google Search ignores it.

Structured data

Code (usually schema.org JSON-LD) that describes a page's content to machines. It must match what people see.

Entity

A specific, identifiable thing, such as your business, a person or a product, that search systems try to recognise consistently.

Google-Extended

A robots.txt token that controls whether Google may use your content to train Gemini models and to ground answers in the Gemini app and Vertex AI. It doesn't affect Google Search.

Snippet controls

Tags such as nosnippet and max-snippet that limit how much of a page Google shows, including in AI features.

IndexNow

A protocol for telling Bing and other search engines immediately when a page changes.

Prompt tracking

Repeatedly asking AI tools set questions and recording whether your business is mentioned or cited.

Scaled content abuse

Google's spam policy against producing many low-value pages to manipulate rankings or AI answers.

Non-commodity content

Google's term for content with unique expertise or experience, as opposed to common knowledge anyone could write.

AI SEO agency FAQs

Get a free AI visibility check

Sources

1. Google Search Central: AI features and your website
2. Google Search Central: Optimizing your website for generative AI features on Google Search
3. Google Search Central blog: Top ways to ensure your content performs well in Google's AI experiences on Search (21 May 2025)
4. Google Search Central: Do you need an SEO?
5. Google Search Central: Guidance on using third-party SEO tools, services and advice
6. Google Search Central: Spam policies for Google web search
7. Search Console Help: Generative AI performance report (Search)
8. Search Console Help: Search generative AI control
9. Bing Webmaster Blog: Introducing AI Performance in Bing Webmaster Tools Public Preview (10 Feb 2026)
10. OpenAI: Overview of OpenAI crawlers
11. OpenAI Help Center: Searching the web with ChatGPT
12. Perplexity: Perplexity crawlers
13. Anthropic: Does Anthropic crawl data from the web, and how can site owners block the crawler?
14. llmstxt.org: The /llms.txt file (proposal)
15. Aggarwal et al., GEO: Generative Engine Optimization (arXiv 2311.09735)
16. Google: Google common crawlers (Google-Extended)
17. CMA: Fake reviews guidance (CMA208)