In short and in plain language
Many firms let experts look after their website for search engines. Google has a list of questions for this. You can use these questions to check an offer.
The list also asks about GEO. This means the website should show up in answers from AI. Google says this is also search work. Many so-called tricks do not help with it.
Ask before you sign: What is done each month? How is success measured? Who gets which access? How long does the contract run?
For a first check, give read access only. The owner rights stay with your firm.
No one can promise first place on Google. You should turn down an offer that makes such a promise.
Offers for search engine optimization tend to read alike: audit, keywords, content, link building, monthly report. Since AI answers started appearing above the search results, another line item has joined them, sold under names such as GEO or AEO. For managing directors, practice owners and shop operators it is hard to judge what these items contain and which of them actually move the website forward. Google itself calls hiring an SEO a big decision: it can improve a site's visibility and save time, but it can also damage the site and the company's reputation (Google Search Central). The accompanying guide contains a list of questions that works well as a checklist for offers, and it explicitly asks how AI features are handled. This article sorts those questions into six blocks: scope, reporting, access, contract term, GEO services and AI-written texts. For each block you will see what a reliable answer looks like and when a follow-up question is due. At the end there is a checklist with eight questions you can send to a provider before the first meeting.
Key points at a glance
- Google advises asking an SEO provider questions up front. The guide in its June 2026 version also asks whether GEO advice is aligned with the official guidance on generative AI features (Google Search Central).
- Read access to Search Console is enough for a first audit. A property can have up to 100 users without owner rights (Google Search Console), so owner rights can stay with the company.
- Since August 31, 2026, Search Console has offered a worldwide report on impressions in AI Overviews and AI Mode (Google Search Console). A GEO offer should state whether it measures with it.
- According to Google Search Central, Google Search does not need an llms.txt file, chopped-up texts or special schema markup for its AI features. Anyone charging for these should name the system they are meant for.
- Minimum term, notice period, automatic renewal and the use of texts after the contract ends belong in the offer in writing, as does a waiver of any mandatory link to the provider.
- Google does not reject AI-written texts as such but advises a manual review. 35 percent of AI-using companies with ten or more employees generate language or program code with it (Destatis); the offer states who checks facts and metadata.
What Google's guide on choosing an SEO asks
The page is called "Do you need an SEO?" and is part of the Google Search Central documentation. The German version is dated June 2026 (Google Search Central). It starts by listing what SEO professionals, agencies and consultants can usefully provide: a review of a site's content and structure, technical advice on hosting, redirects, error pages and JavaScript, content development, keyword research, training and expertise in specific markets. The last item on the list is optimizing for generative AI. Right after it comes a note that every offer should respect: advertising with Google has no effect on a site's presence in the organic search results, and Google does not accept money to include or rank sites (Google Search Central).
For small local businesses, Google notes that they can probably do much of the work themselves and recommends the SEO starter guide (Google Search Central). Those who hire a professional anyway benefit from knowing the basics, because it makes it easier to spot when a provider suggests techniques Google discourages. The guide names planning a site redesign or a new website as a good time to hire, the earlier the better. Our article on SEO basics for businesses gives an overview; if you are planning a website relaunch, it pays to bring search engine optimization into the project from the start.
The core of the guide is a list of questions for a potential provider. It ranges from references and experience in your industry and region to communication. Alongside these are questions for evaluating recommendations: Is official Google documentation cited as supporting evidence? If there is advice on optimizing for AI experiences, also known as "AEO" or "GEO" services, is it aligned with Google Search's official guidance? Does the provider use tools that are aligned with Google's guidance (Google Search Central)? These three questions are the yardstick for every line item that promises AI visibility.
There is an understandable reason why such questions are on the table. In a survey by the German digital association Bitkom, 50 percent (Bitkom) of internet users aged 16 and over in Germany said they at least sometimes use a chat with an AI instead of a classic web search; 47 percent (Bitkom) still use classic search exclusively. At the same time, 42 percent (Bitkom) of those who use AI for searching report false or invented information, and only 36 percent (Bitkom) feel the AI backs up its answers with enough links. Regarding AI summaries above classic search results, 24 percent (Bitkom) often use the summary without looking at the results, while 43 percent (Bitkom) click on the search results to form their own view. For businesses this creates an understandable worry about being left out of AI answers, and that is exactly where many GEO offers come in.
Google frames the terms soberly. Its guide on optimizing for generative AI features states that, from Google Search's perspective, optimizing for generative AI search is optimizing for the search experience and therefore still SEO (Google Search Central). Anyone considering AEO or GEO services is explicitly pointed to the advice on evaluating third-party SEO recommendations. For an offer this means: a GEO line item is not suspicious just because it carries a new name. But it has to pass the same test as any other SEO service.
Three terms, one discipline
Before the offer: clarify your goal and starting point
An offer can only be assessed once it is clear what it is for. Google expects a good SEO to ask questions: what makes the business unique, who the competitors are, how search results can help and how customers find the business (Google Search Central). A provider who sends a ready-made package without asking these questions has not yet looked at your business. Conversely, the conversation moves faster if you have prepared the answers.
- The goal in a measurable form: inquiries through the form, phone calls, appointment bookings or online shop revenue.
- The region in which you want to be found and the services that matter there.
- Which accounts exist and who holds them: Search Console, Business Profile, content management system, hosting, domain.
- What has been done so far, with time frame and result, even if it did not work.
- Who in your company approves texts and is allowed to make changes to the website.
The first point in particular determines the reports later on. If you only track visitor numbers, it is hard to say after half a year whether the work paid off. Our article on measuring website success shows which metrics make sense for service providers, shops and local businesses. Locally active companies also have their Business Profile, which many offers handle under local SEO and which raises its own access questions.
Question block 1: scope and results
The first questions in the guide focus on experience and expectations: references, compliance with Google Search Essentials, expected results and time frame, how success is measured, experience in your industry, country or city and with international sites, how long the provider has been in business, and communication (Google Search Central). The last question deserves a closer look. Google asks whether the provider will share all changes made to the site and explain the reasoning behind recommendations in detail. A provider who agrees to this commits to keeping a change log.
| Question for the provider | Reliable answer | Follow up if |
|---|---|---|
| What results do you expect, and in what time frame? | Goals with a metric and review date, split into technical work, content and local signals | only rankings are mentioned, or a date for the top position |
| How do you measure your success? | A data source for each metric, such as Search Console or your own inquiry statistics | the report consists solely of a third-party visibility score |
| Do you follow Google Search Essentials? | Reference to Search Essentials and the spam policies, with examples from their own work | the answer is evasive or talks about "gray areas" |
| What experience do you have in my industry and region? | Comparable assignments, with contacts for references on request | only logos are shown and nobody can be reached for questions |
| Will you inform me about every change? | A change log with date, page, reason and responsible person | changes are meant to happen "in the background" |
When it comes to scope itself, a simple distinction helps: what is analyzed, what is implemented, and by whom? Many offers include an audit and recommendations, while implementation stays with the client or their web agency. That is legitimate, but it has to be stated in the offer. Ask which hours or deliverables are agreed per month, whether new texts are included and who makes changes in the content management system. If technical maintenance lies with another provider, coordination between the two belongs in the offer, otherwise recommendations end up gathering dust. At XICWEB, website care and SEO come from one team, so recommendations and implementation do not wait on two different desks.
Question block 2: reporting and measurement
Google describes what an SEO audit should deliver: realistic estimates of improvement and an estimate of the work involved (Google Search Central). For ongoing work, the report is added, and its most important property is that you can check every figure in it yourself. The obvious source is Search Console. In its default view, the performance report shows clicks and impressions from Google search results for the last three months (Google Search Console); other periods can be selected. Tables there are limited to 1,000 rows (Google Search Console), which on larger sites is a reason to back up data regularly.
Since August 31, 2026, Search Console has offered a separate performance report on generative AI features worldwide (Google Search Console). It shows impressions, meaning how often links to the site were presented in AI Overviews and AI Mode, grouped by pages, countries, devices and time periods. This helps when assessing a GEO offer: there is now a data source directly from Google that shows visibility in these features. So ask whether the provider uses this report and how they connect its figures to inquiries or revenue.
Caution is advised with metrics whose origin remains unclear. Google points out that no third-party tool has access to its internal ranking or AI systems and recommends evaluating the advice of such tools against its official guidance (Google Search Central). A tool may make the work easier. But a report that consists solely of its index values says little about whether your website wins customers.
- Clicks, impressions and click-through rate from Search Console for the agreed pages and search terms
- Impressions from the generative AI features report as soon as the site appears there
- The goals from the offer, such as inquiries, calls or orders, each with its data source
- A log of the changes made, with date and reasoning
- The planned steps for the next month and open items on your side
Question block 3: access and rights
On Search Console access, the guide gets specific: if an SEO offers to do an audit, grant only read access and no write access at this stage (Google Search Central). Search Console distinguishes roles for this. Owners have full control, can add or remove users and configure settings; full users can view all data and take some actions, restricted users can view most data (Google Search Console). A property can have a maximum of 100 users without owner rights (Google Search Console). So there is no reason to give a provider an owner account for lack of space.
Since late summer 2026, the role has carried extra weight. A property's settings determine whether the site's content is included in AI Overviews, AI Mode and generative AI features in Discover. This setting has been available for all sites worldwide since August 31, 2026, and after an opt-out, content is excluded from these features within one to two days, according to Google, although caching can make it take longer for some content (Google Search Console). Whoever hands out owner rights therefore also hands over this switch. For ongoing work, a full user is often enough, and the owner account stays with the company.
At the end of a working relationship, one detail is often overlooked. If a verified owner is removed, their verification tokens remain on the website or in DNS, and as long as they are there, that person can re-verify ownership (Google Search Console). Removing these tokens is therefore part of the handover. Something similar applies to the Google Business Profile: there can be several owners, but only one primary owner (Google Business Profile Help). That should be your company, with the provider working as a manager. Our article Who owns your website? explains how domain, access and usage rights fit together.
If the provider gets access to systems containing personal data, such as the content management system with form submissions or the shop with customer accounts, data protection comes into play. Processing by a processor is governed by a contract that sets out the subject matter, duration, nature and purpose of the processing (Art. 28(3) GDPR). Among other things, it has to stipulate that the processor deletes or returns all personal data at the controller's choice once the services have ended, unless the law requires the data to be stored (Art. 28(3), point (g) GDPR). Whether such a contract is needed depends on what data the provider actually sees; the question belongs in every offer discussion.
Search Console
A restricted user for the audit, a full user for ongoing work. The owner account stays within the company.
Business Profile
Your company remains primary owner, and the provider gets the manager role with its own Google account.
Content management
One account per person with the smallest role that does the job. Shared passwords have no place there.
Hosting and FTP
Only when technical changes are due, and then with the commitment to explain every change made to the site.
Analytics
Read access to statistics and inquiry figures is enough for the report. Nobody needs write access for it.
Domain and DNS
Stay with the domain holder. The provider's verification records are deleted when the contract ends.
Question block 4: contract term, notice and handover
Search engine optimization takes time, that much is undisputed. It does not follow that a contract has to tie you down for long. Check four details in the offer: the minimum term, the notice period, whether and by how much the contract renews automatically, and what happens to texts, pages and settings when it ends. Companies usually sign such contracts as business customers, for whom different rules apply than for consumers. Our article on website contract terms and notice periods shows how deadlines are calculated and why several website contracts usually end on different dates.
One point from Google's guide belongs directly in the contract review: do not let yourself be obliged to include a link to the SEO on your website (Google Search Central). Under the spam policies, a link required as part of terms of service, a contract or a similar arrangement can count as link spam if the content owner cannot qualify the outbound link (Google Search Central). Also clarify who owns the texts that are created. Whoever pays for content should be allowed to keep using it after the contract ends, without pages disappearing along with the provider.
At XICWEB, ongoing SEO support can be canceled monthly and has no minimum term; we only agree on a fixed term where we pre-finance setup and operation. The SEO and visibility page lists which services each package includes.
Question block 5: checking GEO services
For a page to appear in generative AI features on Google Search, it must be indexed and eligible to be shown in Google Search with a snippet, in other words meet the Search technical requirements (Google Search Central). On top of that comes the Search Console setting described above, which is set to inclusion by default. At the same time, Google stresses that even a page meeting all requirements will not necessarily be crawled, indexed or served. The foundation of a sound GEO offer is therefore the same as for SEO: crawlable pages, a clear technical structure and content that offers more than general knowledge.
The section in which Google rejects common assumptions about AI search is revealing. Many suggested "hacks" are not effective or are not supported by how Google Search works (Google Search Central). The following table compares typical line items in offers with what the documentation says.
| Line item in the offer | What Google's documentation says | Question for the provider |
|---|---|---|
| Creating llms.txt or other AI text files | Google Search does not use such files; maintaining them has neither a positive nor a negative effect on ranking | Which other system is the file meant for, and how is its benefit measured there? |
| Splitting texts into small chunks | Not necessary, Google's systems understand several topics on one page; there is no ideal page length | Which reader problem does the new structure solve? |
| Rewriting texts for AI, many pages per query variant | No special writing style is needed; pages for every variant created to manipulate rankings can violate the scaled content abuse policy | How many new pages are planned, and what value does each one add? |
| Building mentions in forums and blogs | Inauthentic mentions are less helpful than they may seem; other systems block spam | Who writes the posts, and are they recognizable as advertising? |
| Special schema markup for AI | Structured data is not required for AI search and no special markup needs to be added; it remains useful for rich results | Which rich results is it meant to achieve? |
| Measuring with a tool's "internal" Google metrics | No third-party tool has access to Google's internal ranking or AI systems | Which figures come from Search Console and which from the tool? |
The table concerns Google Search. Other AI assistants work with their own systems, and a provider can explain why they propose something different for those. What matters is that they say which system a measure is meant for and how success will become visible. Our article on website traffic from AI search describes how visitors reach websites from AI assistants, and the article on AI Overviews explains how Google's AI summaries work. Google also recommends maintaining your Business Profile and product data, because AI answers can include information on local businesses and products (Google Search Central).
Question block 6: handling AI-written texts
Many providers use generative AI for content, and the practice is widespread: 26 percent (Destatis) of companies with at least ten employees used artificial intelligence technologies in 2025, and 35 percent (Destatis) of these companies use it to generate natural language, including program code. Google does not reject AI-written texts as such. Generative AI can be useful for researching a topic and adding structure to original content; but using it to generate many pages without adding value for users may violate the spam policy on scaled content abuse (Google Search Central).
This leads to a set of concrete questions for the offer. Google recommends manually checking all AI-generated content for accuracy and trustworthiness before publishing, including metadata such as title elements, meta descriptions, structured data and image alt text (Google Search Central). Anyone publishing automatically generated content should, according to Google, also explain how it was created. Our article on website copy and AI covers what else Google says about AI-written texts and what a review process can look like.
- Who writes the texts, and what role does AI play?
- Who checks facts, figures and legal details before a text goes live?
- Are titles, descriptions and alt texts checked as carefully as the body text?
- How many new pages are planned per month, and for which search queries?
- Who approves texts, and may they still be used after the contract ends?
First-hand experience remains the difference that a language model cannot supply. Google describes a unique perspective, such as an assessment based on first-hand experience, as a hallmark of valuable content (Google Search Central). A provider who interviews your experts and puts their knowledge into texts works closer to this description than one who generates texts from search terms alone. Our content marketing page shows how we develop content.
Warning signs that send an offer back
Some statements in an offer end the review early, and Google spells them out clearly. No one can promise a first-place ranking on Google, and if an SEO auditing your site says their changes will put it at the top of the results, you should look for someone else (Google Search Central). The following points come from the guide and the spam policies.
- A promise of a specific ranking or the top position in the search results.
- A claimed "special relationship with Google" or "priority submission" of the website.
- An obligation to place a link to the provider on your own website.
- Link popularity schemes or submitting the site to thousands of search engines (Google Search Central).
- Purchased links meant to pass ranking signals that are not marked with rel="sponsored" or rel="nofollow".
- Unsolicited emails complaining that the site is not registered with search engines.
- Withheld information or goals the provider leaves unclear.
Responsibility stays with the site owner
The checklist to take with you
The easiest way to assess an offer is to have the provider answer in writing beforehand. Send the following questions with your inquiry or before the first meeting and mark each answer with one of three levels: proven, if evidence is attached, such as a sample report, a passage in Google's documentation or a role description; open, if the offer says nothing on the question; missing, if the service is not included or is declined.
- Which services are agreed per month, and who implements the changes?
- What results do you expect in what time frame, and how do you measure success?
- Are all changes to the website logged and explained?
- Which access do you need, and is read access to Search Console enough for the audit?
- Does your GEO advice follow Google's guide on generative AI features?
- Do you cite official Google documentation as evidence for your recommendations?
- How are AI-assisted texts and metadata checked before publishing?
- Which tools do you use, and are they aligned with Google's guidance?
An offer with several open items is not automatically bad; often the questions simply have not been asked yet. What matters is how the provider responds. Clear, verifiable answers point to a working relationship in which you know what is happening to your website. The page on our ongoing SEO support sets out package contents and contract terms. If you would like to put the questions to us directly or request a free initial analysis of your website, use our contact page.
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