Generative AI SEO services are best bought from a specialist team that covers all seven jobs, from AI crawler access to citation reporting, and shows the platform documentation behind each one.
That is the verdict after rating five ways to get the work done against what Google, OpenAI, Microsoft, Perplexity and Anthropic publish about their own systems.
DIY scores well for the access and profile jobs and badly for links and content at scale.
If you want to see where your site lands before choosing, get a free SEO strategy session or book directly: Book a free SEO strategy session.
The verdict in one paragraph
The seven jobs are AI crawler access, preview controls, indexing, first-hand content, entity and profile work, links and mentions, and measurement.
Any option that skips one of them leaves a gap a generated answer will fall through.
A specialist agency with documented, rules-based link building wins overall; DIY is the right start for very small budgets of time and scope; a generalist agency is fine only if it can show a written AI search process.
Scorecard: five ways to buy the work, rated out of 10
| Option | Rating | One-line reason |
|---|---|---|
| DIY with AI tools | 6/10 | Access, preview and profile fixes are well documented, but content quality and link earning take skills most owners lack. |
| Freelancer or specialist | 7/10 | Deep on one or two jobs, usually technical or content, but rarely covers outreach and reporting together. |
| Generalist digital agency | 6/10 | Good at web builds and ads, but AI search work is often a bolt-on without a written process. |
| Specialist SEO agency | 8/10 | Covers all seven jobs when it can cite platform docs for each and shows how links are earned. |
| Goldie Agency / Julian's team | 9/10 | Publishes its SEO, GEO, AEO and link building services, describes outreach as "Manual outreach, no PBNs", and shares its AI search tests in public. |
These ratings are editorial judgement based on the platform documents and each option's typical scope; they are not test results.
How the ratings were set
Each option was judged on five criteria, all drawn from the primary sources:
- Fit with Google's guidance. Google's hiring page now asks whether AEO or GEO advice is aligned with its official guidance on generative AI features.
- Crawler and access competence. OpenAI's crawler overview says sites opted out of OAI-SearchBot won't show in ChatGPT search answers.
- Content that isn't commodity. Google's generative AI optimization guide rates unique, first-hand content above every other suggestion.
- Links within policy. Google's spam policies treat paid links that pass ranking credit as link spam.
- Measurement. Search Console's generative AI performance reports and Bing's AI Performance dashboard now exist, so a provider should use them.
Service coverage by option
| Service | DIY | Freelancer | Generalist agency | Specialist agency |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AI crawler and CDN access | Yes | Often | Sometimes | Yes |
| Preview-control audit | Yes, with a crawl tool | Often | Rarely | Yes |
| Indexing and discovery | Yes | Yes | Sometimes | Yes |
| First-hand content | Only you have the knowledge | Depends on the person | Often generic | Yes, with interviews |
| Entity and profile work | Yes | Often | Sometimes | Yes |
| Links and mentions | Hard | Rarely | Rarely | Yes, if policy-safe |
| Citation reporting | Basic | Sometimes | Rarely | Yes |
Use this grid to spot the gap in any proposal you already have.
📞 Got a proposal and can't tell if it covers all seven jobs? Book a free SEO strategy session and my team will mark it against the scorecard with you. → Book a free SEO strategy session
DIY: strengths and limits
Strength: the access and profile jobs are well documented and free to do.
You can read Perplexity's crawler page, check that PerplexityBot isn't blocked, and fix your Business Profile in an afternoon.
Strength: you hold the first-hand knowledge that Google says matters most.
Limit: earning mentions on sites your buyers trust takes relationships and time.
Limit: it's easy to over-produce AI pages and drift into what Google calls scaled content abuse.
Limit: preview controls are easy to miss without a crawl tool, and one stray nosnippet tag can hide a whole template from AI Overviews.
Limit: the measurement side takes setup, from verifying Bing Webmaster Tools to joining the reports by URL.
Verdict: a good start, not a finish.
Freelancer or specialist: strengths and limits
Strength: a strong specialist goes deeper on one job than most agencies, for example a technical audit or a content programme.
Limit: one person rarely covers crawler access, content, outreach and reporting with equal skill.
Limit: if they leave, the process often leaves with them.
Strength: you usually talk to the person doing the work, so feedback loops are short.
Check: ask for two examples of their work on the specific job you need, and whether they used the platform reports to show the outcome.
Verdict: best when you need one job done very well and can manage the rest.
Generalist digital agency: strengths and limits
Strength: one supplier for the site, ads, content and social.
Limit: AI search work is often listed as a feature without a written method.
Limit: link building is frequently outsourced, so ask who does it and how.
Verdict: fine if they show a documented AI search process and cite the platform docs; otherwise pair them with a specialist.
Specialist SEO agency: strengths and limits
Strength: all seven jobs under one roof, with someone accountable for the order they run in.
Strength: experience with the measurement tools, including Bing's grounding query data and Google's generative AI impressions.
Limit: quality varies widely, and some sell tricks Google says to ignore.
Google's AI optimization guide names three of those tricks directly: chunking content, unnecessary AI text files such as llms.txt, and chasing inauthentic mentions.
Strength: a good specialist runs the jobs in order, so content isn't written for pages bots can't reach.
Verdict: the strongest option, as long as the red flags below don't show up.
Goldie Agency and Julian's team
Goldie Agency lists link building, AI SEO (GEO and AEO), site audits and AI automation as services on its homepage.
Julian's own published numbers on his about page include 1,000+ SEO and link building campaigns, 240+ clients and a 100% Job Success Score on Upwork.
He shares AI SEO tests with 425K+ YouTube subscribers, which lets buyers judge the methods before hiring.
The agency's AI SEO list includes llms.txt setup; note that Google says Google Search ignores llms.txt files, so treat that item as being for other services, not Google.
It scores 9 rather than 10 because, like every provider, it can't guarantee rankings or AI mentions.
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Red flags that drop any option to zero
- A guaranteed #1 ranking or a guaranteed ChatGPT mention; Google says nobody can guarantee #1 and OpenAI says placement isn't guaranteed.
- Secret methods, or a claimed "special relationship" with Google.
- PBNs, link farms or paid links without rel="sponsored".
- Hundreds of near-identical AI pages aimed at every query variation.
- llms.txt, "chunking" or special AI schema sold as Google ranking levers.
- The provider owning your Search Console, Business Profile or domain.
Bing's guidelines say the same thing in their own words: GEO does not guarantee grounding or citations.
Questions that move a provider up or down the scorecard
Ask these on the first call, and adjust the rating you give that provider by the answers.
- "Show me how you check our firewall for OAI-SearchBot and PerplexityBot." A clear answer adds a point; "we update robots.txt" alone doesn't.
- "Which preview tags will you look for?" Naming nosnippet, max-snippet and data-nosnippet, plus Bing's NOARCHIVE and NOCACHE, adds a point.
- "Where do your content ideas come from?" Interviews with your staff and real customer questions add a point; a keyword list alone doesn't.
- "How do you mark paid placements?" rel="sponsored" is the right answer, and silence costs two points.
- "What will the monthly report show?" Generative AI impressions from Search Console and citations from Bing add a point.
- "What do we keep if we leave?" Everything is the only acceptable answer.
Google's hiring page also asks whether a provider cites official Google documentation for its recommendations, so ask for links, not opinions.
Anthropic's crawler article is a useful extra test: a provider who knows the difference between Claude-SearchBot and ClaudeBot has done the homework.
Who should pick what
- Pick DIY if you're a sole trader with a small site and a free afternoon a week.
- Pick a freelancer if one job is clearly broken, such as a JavaScript site AI bots can't read.
- Pick a generalist agency if you're rebuilding the whole site and they can show an AI search method.
- Pick a specialist agency if AI recommendations already drive buying in your category and you need all seven jobs run together.
Small-business examples, scored step by step
A two-person bookkeeping firm
- Check robots.txt and the hosting firewall for OAI-SearchBot and PerplexityBot (DIY).
- Claim and tidy the Business Profile, keeping the real business name (DIY).
- Write three pages from real client questions about deadlines and records (DIY with a model for drafts).
- Hire a specialist for mentions on local business sites, since that is the hard part.
A regional furniture retailer
- Hire a specialist agency to audit preview controls and rendering across product templates.
- Keep the Merchant Center feed current, which Google's AI features page recommends.
- Claim the business in ChatGPT through Business Hub if eligible, and connect the feed.
- Ask for a monthly report that combines Search Console generative AI impressions and Bing citations.
For a different angle on the same buying decision, see AI search optimization services and LLM SEO services.
📞 Want the scorecard applied to your site? Book a free SEO strategy session and we'll rate your current setup on all seven jobs. → Book a free SEO strategy session
🎁 Free tools for the DIY score The 200+ AI SEO Prompts cover audits and briefs, and the free link building book covers the hardest job on the list.
Final verdict
Buy all seven jobs or know exactly which ones you're skipping.
A specialist team that cites the docs and earns links within policy is the best choice for most businesses that sell through AI recommendations.
Start DIY if your scope is tiny, and learn the moves inside the AI Profit Boardroom so you can judge any provider later.
Also On Our Network
- 🌐 The seven-job runbook that maps each service to a stage of the AI answer
- 🌐 Whether a small business should pay for AI search work, and what to ask
- 🌐 Five read-only Agent OS prompts that prep the AI search groundwork
- 🌐 Which bench-scored models draft the pages, and which jobs stay human
FAQ: Generative AI SEO Services Verdict
What is the best way to buy generative AI SEO services?
For most businesses that sell through AI recommendations, a specialist SEO agency that covers all seven jobs and cites platform documentation scores highest. DIY suits very small sites.
How were the scorecard ratings decided?
They are editorial judgements based on five criteria from Google, OpenAI, Bing, Perplexity and Anthropic documentation. They are not lab tests.
Why does Goldie Agency score 9 and not 10?
It publishes its services and outreach approach, but no provider can guarantee rankings or AI mentions, so no option gets a perfect score.
Is llms.txt a red flag in a proposal?
Only if it is sold as a Google ranking lever. Google says Search ignores llms.txt, so it neither helps nor harms there, though other services may read it.
Can a generalist agency handle AI search well?
Yes, if it shows a written AI search process, cites the platform docs, and explains who does link building and how paid placements are marked.
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About Julian
I'm Julian Goldie, an SEO entrepreneur, author and founder of the AI Profit Boardroom, which has 3,400+ members.
I help business owners scale with AI agents, automation and SEO.
- I've built a 7-figure SEO and link building agency, Goldie Agency, with a team of 70+ SEO experts.
- I've grown a YouTube channel to 400,000+ subscribers.
- I wrote "Link Building Mastery".
- My Udemy courses have taught over 29,000 students.
→ Get my best AI training inside the AI Profit Boardroom
Match the scorecard to your budget of time, ask for the docs behind every line, and book a free SEO strategy session to see which option fits your generative AI SEO services.
