How to choose an AI search (GEO) contractor: questions to ask and red flags

A note before we start

JW2D itself does AI search optimization, so we have an interest. That is why the checklist below is based mainly on Google’s own advice for hiring an SEO and on the official guidelines of Google and Bing — you can apply it to any contractor, including us.

Questions to ask

Google’s “Do you need an SEO?” page lists questions to ask a potential contractor. Adapted to AI search:

1. Can you show examples of past work? For GEO this means real AI answers: which question was asked, in which model, on what date, with a screenshot.
2. Do you follow Google Search Essentials — and the guidelines of Bing and other platforms?
3. What results do you expect, over what timeframe, and how do you measure them? For example: mention rate on a fixed list of questions, citations in Bing Webmaster Tools, visits with utm_source=chatgpt.com.
4. Do you have experience in our industry and our country? For Estonia this includes working in Estonian, Russian and English.
5. Will you explain every change you make to the site and why?

Red flags

• Guaranteed first place. Google states that no one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google and advises finding someone else if a contractor promises first place. The same applies to “guaranteed recommendation in ChatGPT”.
• “We will buy you a place in AI answers.” Google says it never accepts money to include or rank sites in its search results; we have found no official way to pay for citations in ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude or Copilot answers.
• Secret methods. Google warns to be careful if a company is secretive or will not clearly explain what it intends to do.
• Fake reviews and mass mentions. These are reputational risks; Bing’s guidelines also treat manipulation of language models, including prompt injection, as abuse.
• Hundreds of generated pages. Google’s spam policies name generating many pages with AI without value for users as scaled content abuse.
• Unsolicited offers. Google advises skepticism toward companies that email you out of the blue.
• “Approved by Google” tools. Google does not endorse third-party SEO tools.

Signs of a good contractor

• starts with an audit: what AI answers about your niche today;
• shows reports on the same list of questions month to month;
• fixes the foundation first — indexing, crawler access, consistent company facts;
• explains the limits honestly: AI answers vary and timing depends on how often models update their sources;
• gives a price and scope in writing before work starts.

How much GEO costs

There is no official market price. At JW2D, AI search optimization starts from €1200; the final price depends on the niche, the number of markets and AI platforms, and the current state of the website. Ask any contractor what exactly is included in the price and how results will be reported.