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Author

Ian Duncan

Founder, Axiom Flux and AxiomAI

Ian Duncan is the founder of Axiom Flux and AxiomAI, the company behind Axiom GEO. He has worked in marketing for 30 years, from the days of the HotBot search engine to today's AI answers.

He has led search and marketing as Head of Search, Director of Strategy, Director of Delivery, Marketing Director and Chief Marketing Officer. His work has covered blue-chip brands, charities and international organisations in retail, education, home improvement, medical aesthetics, regulated industries, government, industrial, travel and technology.

His specialist areas are search engine optimisation, generative engine optimisation, pay per click, email marketing, AI automation and joined-up marketing systems. He has spoken at industry events, including a Guardian event on SEO.

Ian writes and reviews the guides on this site, and shapes Axiom GEO around the questions he and his clients need answered about AI search.

Areas of expertise

  • Generative engine optimisation
  • Search engine optimisation
  • AI search visibility
  • Pay per click advertising
  • Email marketing
  • Marketing automation
  • Marketing strategy

Comparisons

Platform pages

AI visibility tracking

AI visibility tracking shows whether ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude and Google AI Overviews mention your brand, where you appear, and what they cite.

AI visibility tracking tool

An AI visibility tracking tool that shows whether ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude and Google AI Overviews name your brand, where, and which pages they cite.

ChatGPT visibility tracking

ChatGPT visibility tracking shows whether it names your brand for the questions buyers ask, where you appear, which rivals it picks and which pages it cites.

AI Overviews tracker

This AI Overviews tracker shows which keywords trigger a Google AI Overview and whether you are cited. AI Mode answers are tracked per prompt too.

Google AI Overviews and AI Mode tracking

This AI Overview tracker shows which keywords trigger an overview and whether you are cited. Google AI Mode answers are tracked per prompt, with sources.

Perplexity, Gemini and Claude tracking

Perplexity, Gemini and Claude tracking for your brand shows what each engine says, what Perplexity and Gemini cite, and what Claude believes about you.

AI citation tracking

AI citation tracking shows which domains and pages ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews cite for your prompts, and which of your URLs appear.

Competitor share of voice in AI answers

Measure your share of voice in AI answers against competitors, weighted by position, and see who AI engines recommend, how often and why.

Local and multi-market AI visibility

Track local AI visibility by running the same prompts in each country or region, split share of voice by place, plus rankings, reviews and listings.

AI traffic analytics

Connect GA4 and Search Console read-only for AI traffic analytics, showing referral visits from ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude and Copilot, synced daily.

AI crawler analytics

Load your server access logs for AI crawler analytics, seeing which AI crawlers, such as GPTBot, ClaudeBot and PerplexityBot, visit your site and pages.

AI answer accuracy checks

Check AI answer accuracy for your business against an approved fact sheet. Find wrong or out of date details, where they came from and how to fix them.

AI answer accuracy checks

Check AI answer accuracy for your business against an approved fact sheet. Find wrong or outdated details, the pages behind them and how to fix them.

Prompt and question research

AI prompt research pulls real questions from People Also Ask, autocomplete, Reddit and your own enquiries, then turns them into prompts, tasks and content.

Reddit insights for AI search

For AI visibility, find the subreddits AI engines cite when they answer questions in your topic, and pull buyer questions from Reddit for research.

Topic gaps

See which sub-topics ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Claude connect with your brand and your competitors, what your site covers, and what to fix first.

Content opportunities from Search Console and AI answers

Content opportunities from page two keywords, falling pages, AI answer gaps and AI Overview gaps, each with an outline, facts and a suggested title.

Data API and Looker Studio feed

Read your AI visibility data with a read-only API key. Answers, share of voice, citations and topic gaps as JSON or CSV, for Google Sheets and Looker Studio.

Page optimisation for AI search

Page optimisation for AI search scores each page on the signals AI engines and Google weigh, with a pass or fail check, a fix list and missing schema.

Schema markup generator

This schema markup generator builds copy-paste JSON-LD for any page, only for the types it is missing. Covers LocalBusiness, FAQPage, Article and more.

Entity audit for AI search

Run an entity audit to rebuild the entity graph your site publishes and get scored findings with the fix for each, also free as a public tool online.

Content packs and article drafts

AI content packs turn a real buyer question into a ready-to-paste answer, FAQ, author bio and JSON-LD, or a full article draft for your team to edit.

Rank tracking

Daily Google rank tracking to position 50, for UK towns and US cities on desktop or mobile, with SERP feature filters, in the same login as AI visibility.

Google Business Profile reviews

Pull Google Business Profile reviews daily for every location, tag each one to the campaign, salesperson or email behind it, and draft replies fast.

Local citations

Track local citations, your directory listings and their status, live, claimed, pending or not claimed, so your name, address and phone match everywhere.

Link building

This link building tool shows your backlinks, finds the link gap against competitors and runs a prospect pipeline, next to pages AI engines cite.

Work, project management for GEO and SEO

SEO project management with board, list, timeline and sign-off views. Tasks carry their evidence, and outcomes are measured once the work is done.

Client reports

Build white label SEO and AI visibility reports as PDFs with your client's logo, add your own advice, share privately and export every main screen to CSV.

Guides

Foundations

What is generative engine optimisation (GEO)?

A plain guide to generative engine optimisation. How AI engines build answers, what GEO work involves, what the research shows and where to start.

Foundations

What is generative engine optimization (GEO)?

Generative engine optimization explained for US businesses. How ChatGPT and Google AI answers are built, what GEO work involves and where to start.

Foundations

GEO vs SEO

GEO vs SEO compared side by side. What each one aims for, how each is measured, what carries over and where the work is different.

Foundations

What is answer engine optimization (AEO)?

What answer engine optimization means, how AEO differs from SEO, how answer engines pick an answer and how to write pages they can quote.

Foundations

AEO vs GEO vs SEO

AEO, GEO and SEO explained side by side, with a comparison table, where each term came from, how they overlap and which to focus on first.

Foundations

LLM SEO

What LLM SEO means, how ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude learn about a business, which tactics help, which are hype, and how to spot a bad offer.

Foundations

What is answer engine optimisation (AEO)?

What answer engine optimisation means, how answer engines pick an answer, how to write pages they can lift, and how AEO fits with SEO and GEO.

Foundations

LLM SEO

What LLM SEO means, how large language models learn about a business, which tactics help, which are hype, and how to tell a sound offer from a scam.

Local

ChatGPT local business guide to AI search

How US local businesses get recommended by ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, AI Mode, Gemini and Perplexity, with steps for listings, reviews and location pages.

Foundations

Is SEO dead?

A balanced look at whether SEO is dead, what AI search is changing, what is replacing parts of it, and where SEO effort still pays off in 2026.

Research

Generative engine optimization statistics 2026

AI search statistics for 2026 on chatbot use, AI Overviews and clicks, AI traffic, local search and AI citations, each with its source, date and sample.

Engines

How to rank in ChatGPT

How to rank in ChatGPT, what makes it choose which businesses to mention and cite, and the practical steps that help your brand appear in its answers.

Engines

How to appear in Google AI Overviews

How to appear in Google AI Overviews, what triggers one, what Google's own guidance says, and the practical steps that make your pages more likely to be cited.

Engines

Google AI Mode, what it means for your business

What Google AI Mode is, how query fan-out works, how it differs from AI Overviews, and how to measure it with the Search Console generative AI report.

Strategy

AI search engine optimization

A practical guide to AI search engine optimization for US businesses, covering ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews and AI Mode, Gemini, Perplexity and Copilot.

Measurement

How to track brand mentions in AI search

Two ways to track brand mentions in AI search, across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google, by hand with a spreadsheet or with a tool, and what to record.

Measurement

How to measure AI visibility

The numbers that measure AI visibility, how to calculate them, what a good AI visibility score looks like, and why every score is a sample.

Measurement

AI share of voice

What AI share of voice is, why mentions should be weighted by position, and a worked example of 1/rank weighting using made-up brands.

Measurement

How AI engines choose sources

How AI engines choose sources, why ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google pick the pages they cite, what retrieval and grounding mean, and what usually wins.

Measurement

AI traffic in GA4

Step by step, how to see AI traffic in GA4 (Google Analytics 4) with the AI Assistant channel, a custom channel group and a regex exploration.

Measurement

AI visibility audit

A manual AI visibility audit anyone can run in a day. Test prompts across engines, check facts, sources, crawler access and schema, then pick the fixes.

Measurement

Prompt research for AI search

Prompt research for AI search, how to choose the prompts to track, where to find real buyer questions, how to add local modifiers, and how many you need.

Protect

When AI gets your business wrong

What to do about wrong AI overview information, when Google, ChatGPT or other AI tools state wrong facts about your business, and how to fix the source.

Technical

Schema markup for AI search

Schema markup for AI search, what it does and does not do for ChatGPT, Gemini and AI Overviews, with JSON-LD examples for Organization and FAQPage.

Technical

llms.txt

An honest look at llms.txt. What the file is, how to write one, an example you can copy, and what the AI engines have and have not said about it.

Technical

AI crawlers and robots.txt

Which AI crawlers visit your site, what each one is for, and how to write robots.txt rules that keep you in AI search while controlling training use.

Technical

Entity SEO for AI search

What entity SEO is and why AI engines need it. Stable @id values, sameAs links, consistent names, author entities and when Wikidata is appropriate.

Content

Reddit and AI search

In AI search, why ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews cite Reddit threads, and how a business can take part honestly without getting banned.

Content

FAQ content for AI search

For AI search, how to choose and write FAQ content that engines can lift into answers, and where FAQ schema still fits after Google dropped rich results.

Content

E-E-A-T for AI search

What E-E-A-T means for AI Overviews, ChatGPT and Perplexity, based on Google's guidance and the Search Quality Rater Guidelines, with practical steps.

Content

Local SEO and AI search

How AI engines choose local businesses to recommend, what local SEO work still counts, and how to track AI visibility for local searches town by town.

Tools

Best AI visibility tools

The best AI visibility tools compared fairly, from Semrush and Ahrefs to Profound, Peec AI, Otterly and Axiom GEO, with who each one suits.

Buying

How to choose an AI visibility tool

A fair checklist for how to choose a GEO or AI visibility tool, covering engines, prompts, repeat runs, citations, accuracy, local coverage and price.

Agencies

How to offer GEO services

For US agencies and consultants, how to package generative engine optimization services and AEO, what to include, and how to report and price it fairly.

Buying

Selling GEO to clients

For agencies and consultants, how to sell GEO services honestly, what to report, how to price a GEO retainer sensibly, and how to set expectations.

landing

Solutions

GEO tool for agencies

A GEO tool for agencies, run AI visibility, answer accuracy, SEO and white label reporting for many clients from one login, each in its own workspace.

Generative engine optimization software for agencies

GEO and AEO software for US agencies. Track AI answers, check facts, run SEO and send white label reports for every client from one login.

AI visibility for in-house marketing teams

AI visibility for marketing teams, see how ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Claude describe your brand, fix what is wrong and report it to leadership.

AI search for franchises and multi-location brands

AI search for franchises. Track AI answers by state or metro, catch closed or wrong locations, and keep reviews and listings for every location.

AI visibility for multi-location brands

Multi-location AI visibility tracks answers by region, catches wrong branch details, and manages reviews, rankings and listings for every location.

AI search for local businesses

AI search for local businesses. See if ChatGPT, Gemini and others name you for local questions, fix wrong details and keep listings in order.

AI search for local service businesses

For local business AI search, see whether ChatGPT and other engines name you for local questions, fix wrong details, and manage reviews and listings.

AI search visibility for B2B and SaaS

B2B AI search visibility shows whether AI engines put you on the shortlist, why competitors get recommended, and where they get your pricing wrong.

GEO tool for SEO consultants

A GEO tool for SEO consultants, add AI visibility, answer accuracy and white label reporting to your practice, with rank tracking and link work too.

Enterprise AI visibility platform

The Axiom GEO Enterprise plan covers up to 100 workspaces, 500 prompts per run, every AI engine and white label reports, with credits set around your usage.