Outline Technologies — SEO, AEO & GEO Agency
FAQ

Questions.
Real Answers.

No jargon. No hand-waving. Just straight answers to the questions people actually ask us before working together.

SEO & Search Visibility

What is SEO and why does it still matter in 2026?+
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the practice of making your website rank higher in search results. It matters more than ever because even with AI answering questions, the majority of website traffic still comes from traditional search. Google processes billions of searches daily. Being visible in those results is still the single most cost effective way to acquire customers.
How long does SEO take to show results?+
Typically 3 to 6 months for meaningful improvements, though this varies by industry competitiveness and your starting position. Technical fixes can show impact within weeks. Content and authority building take longer because Google needs to crawl, evaluate, and trust your pages. Anyone promising page one results in 30 days is either lying or using tactics that will eventually get you penalized.
What's the difference between SEO, AEO, and GEO?+
SEO optimizes for traditional search results (Google blue links). AEO optimizes for answer engines (featured snippets, voice search, direct answers). GEO optimizes for generative AI engines (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews). They overlap significantly but have different specific tactics. The best strategy addresses all three.
Can you guarantee first page rankings?+
No, and you should be suspicious of anyone who does. Google's algorithm considers hundreds of factors and changes constantly. What we can guarantee is a transparent process, data driven decisions, and our full effort toward improving your visibility. We've consistently delivered strong results, but promising specific positions would be dishonest.

AI & GEO Visibility

What is GEO (Generative Engine Optimization)?+
GEO is the practice of optimizing your brand's presence in AI generated responses. When someone asks ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Google AI Overviews a question related to your business, GEO aims to get your brand mentioned, cited, or recommended in that AI response. It's a new discipline that's becoming critical as more people use AI to find information.
Can you control what AI says about my brand?+
You can't directly control AI responses, but you can heavily influence them. AI models form opinions based on what they've been trained on: websites, articles, reviews, social media, forums. By ensuring accurate, authoritative content exists about your brand across these sources, we shape the inputs that determine AI outputs.
Is AI visibility just a trend or is it here to stay?+
It's here to stay and growing. AI traffic to websites has increased over 1200% in the past two years. ChatGPT, Perplexity, and similar platforms are becoming primary research tools for millions of people. Brands that ignore AI visibility now will find themselves increasingly invisible as adoption continues to grow.
How do you measure AI visibility?+
We query AI platforms with questions relevant to your business and track whether your brand appears in the responses. We monitor ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, Claude, and Gemini across dozens of relevant queries. We score each response for mention, accuracy, and sentiment, then track changes over time.

AI Search Specialties

What is LLM SEO and is it different from GEO?+
LLM SEO is the practice of getting large language models like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Copilot to name your brand when someone asks them for a recommendation. In practice it is the same discipline as GEO under the name marketers actually search for. Whichever word you use, the work is identical: entity clarity, quotable content, third-party authority, and crawler access. We run it as one program.
How do I get into Google AI Overviews?+
AI Overviews are assembled from passages Google can lift cleanly from pages it trusts, and each overview cites only one to three sources. The pages that get pulled state their answer in the first lines, cover the question the way people actually ask it, carry correct schema markup, and sit on genuinely authoritative sites. We restructure your best pages for exactly those signals, starting with the ones already ranking near an overview.
Why does Reddit matter for my brand's AI visibility?+
Reddit is the most-cited domain across the major AI models, behind roughly 40% of citations in some 2026 studies, because it is full of real people giving honest recommendations. If your category's buying-advice threads never mention you, the models have little reason to name you. We build genuine, rules-respecting community presence that earns those mentions rather than faking them.
Can AI recommend my local business for near-me searches?+
Yes, and it increasingly does. When someone asks an assistant for the best plumber, dentist, or restaurant nearby, the model names specific businesses based on entity clarity, review volume and recency, and consistent local citations. Our Local GEO service builds exactly those signals so the business the model is most confident about is yours.
What is Google AI Mode and should I care yet?+
AI Mode is Google's conversational search: you ask in plain language and it answers, anticipates follow-ups, and remembers the thread, fanning your question into many searches behind the scenes. Almost nobody optimizes for it yet, which means the sources it leans on are being chosen from a thin field right now. Early movers become the defaults it keeps returning to.

Free Tools

Are the free tools actually free, or an email trap?+
Actually free. The llms.txt generator, AI crawler checker, robots.txt builder, and both legal document generators run the real check and hand you the real result with no email gate. Nothing you type is stored. If a result makes you want help fixing what you found, you know where we are, and if not, you leave with your problem solved.
What does the AI Crawler Checker tell me?+
It fetches your live robots.txt and reads it the way the bots do, then gives you a verdict for 18 AI crawlers: whether GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, and the rest can access your site, whether you have an llms.txt, and an overall AI access score out of 100. Sites regularly block their own AI visibility with a rule written years ago, and this settles it in thirty seconds.
Do I need an llms.txt file?+
It is advisory rather than mandatory, but adoption keeps growing and Lighthouse now checks for it in agentic browsing audits. It gives AI systems a curated map of what matters on your site, which helps the models that fetch pages on demand find your best content. Our free generator builds a correct one from your live site in under a minute.
Are the generated privacy policies and terms legally valid?+
A policy is valid when it accurately discloses your practices and includes what applicable law requires, and being generated changes nothing about that. Generate honestly, edit to match reality, and keep it current. For regulated industries or sensitive data, have a lawyer review the output. For most sites it puts you far ahead of the empty legal page you meant to write.

Pricing & Engagement

How much do your services cost?+
Monthly retainers start at $2,500 for our Growth tier and go up to $10,000+ for our Authority tier. One-time projects like audits start at $1,000. The exact price depends on scope, competitiveness, and which services you need. Check our pricing page for detailed tier breakdowns.
Do you require long term contracts?+
We have a 6 month minimum for retainer engagements because meaningful SEO results require that time. After the initial period, engagements continue month to month. One-time projects have no ongoing commitment.
What's included in the monthly retainer?+
Everything listed in your tier, plus communication through Slack, monthly reporting dashboards, strategy calls, and ongoing access to your project dashboard. No hidden fees for tools, software access, or reporting.
Can we start small and scale up?+
Absolutely. Many clients start with a Growth tier or a one-time audit, evaluate our work, and then expand. We'd rather earn your trust incrementally than oversell you before we've proven ourselves.

Working With Us

Who will be working on my account?+
Abd handles strategy and client communication. Ahmed handles technical implementation. For content production and specialized tasks, we have a small trusted team. You'll always know who is responsible for what. We don't outsource your work to anonymous freelancers.
How do you communicate?+
Dedicated Slack channel for daily communication, monthly strategy calls via Zoom or Google Meet, and a live project dashboard you can check anytime. Email for formal items. Our response time is within 24 hours for Slack messages, usually much faster.
What happens during the first month?+
Week 1: Discovery call and account setup. Weeks 1 to 2: Comprehensive audit across technical SEO, content, AI visibility, and competitive positioning. Weeks 2 to 3: Strategy and roadmap development. Weeks 3 to 4: Begin implementation of priority fixes. You'll have a clear dashboard and schedule by the end of month one.
Can you work with our existing team?+
Yes. We regularly work alongside in-house marketing teams, developers, and content writers. We can handle everything end to end or provide strategy and oversight while your team executes. Whatever structure makes the most sense for your organization.

Technical & Web Development

What technology do you build websites with?+
Next.js and React for the framework, TypeScript for type safety, and tailored CSS for design. We deploy on Vercel for edge performance or your VPS for maximum control. Every site ships with server side rendering, security headers, and structured data.
Can you redesign our existing website?+
Yes. We can do a full rebuild or targeted improvements to specific pages. If your current site has SEO value (rankings, backlinks), we handle the migration carefully to preserve that authority. We've migrated sites from WordPress, Squarespace, and custom platforms without traffic loss.
Do you provide ongoing maintenance?+
Every project includes 30 days of post-launch support. After that, we offer monthly maintenance retainers covering security updates, performance monitoring, content changes, and technical support. If you prefer to maintain in-house, we provide documentation and training.

Still Have Questions?

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