When this scope is useful
Buyers investigate your category through AI answers and you have factual content worth citing.
Fix basic crawlability and weak source material first. A special file cannot substitute for useful content.
Questions that distinguish the team
- Which prompts, languages and dates define the sample?
- Are citations checked against the actual page?
- How are answer observations separated from referral traffic?
Inputs before work starts
Published source material, factual claim register, audience questions and a repeatable sampling protocol.
Three ways to scope the work
These are buyer-side scope models, not an agency price list. Use the inputs, client responsibilities and exclusions below for each model.
01 / Diagnose
- Work
- Audit access and factual consistency of core pages.
- Handover
- Access and evidence gap report.
02 / Deliver a defined project
- Work
- Improve selected source pages and record a baseline sample.
- Handover
- Revised source pages and dated prompt sample.
03 / Manage and improve
- Work
- Repeat the same observation protocol and investigate real referrals.
- Handover
- Observation register with platform, prompt, date and cited URL.
Acceptance and shared responsibility
Another reviewer can reproduce the sampling procedure. Changed answers are documented without presenting a sample as total market share.
Client responsibilities
Approve product facts and make original supporting evidence accessible.
What needs separate agreement
Guaranteed citations, guaranteed answer positions and claimed revenue from untracked mentions are excluded.
Ask for a cost estimate based on the actual access, production volume, integrations and review cadence. A comparable price requires the same scope.
Take this into the brief
Service: AI search visibility Inputs: Published source material, factual claim register, audience questions and a repeatable sampling protocol. Acceptance: Another reviewer can reproduce the sampling procedure. Changed answers are documented without presenting a sample as total market share. Questions: Which prompts, languages and dates define the sample? Are citations checked against the actual page? How are answer observations separated from referral traffic?
Common buying questions
Does Google require a special AI file?
Its guidance says no additional AI file or special schema is needed.
Can a mention prove a visit?
No. Record observed mentions and actual referred visits separately.
Evidence to examine
Evidence review
Tensar: AI-related search clicks are not AI referrals
The useful distinction is the denominator: clicks for a selected keyword set are not a direct count of visits from an AI answer. Preserve the original label when comparing vendors.
Sources and review date
Sources read on: 2026-09-11. A source review is not an audit of the agency’s systems.