GEO courseModule 10 of 10: Measure and PlanLesson 10.1
Measuring Honestly: The Monthly Report, and What Can’t Be Measured
How to turn your monthly prompt runs, Google's and Bing's AI reports, Analytics and your enquiry sources into one honest page each month, without fooling yourself about what moved.
01What it is
Weighing yourself once, after a big lunch, tells you nothing. Weighing yourself at the same time every week, on the same scales, tells you a lot.
GEO measurement done badly is worse than none, because it feels like knowledge. AI answers change from run to run, so the honest unit is never "we're number 2". It's "we were named in 11 of 48 answers".
What to measure
| Measure | What it means |
|---|---|
| Mention rate | Answers that name you ÷ answers run. Always show the count: 11 of 48 |
| Citation rate | Answers that link to or show a page from your site ÷ answers run |
| Share of voice | Your mentions ÷ all agency mentions across the same prompts. Keep your own definition fixed |
| Accuracy | Correct facts ÷ facts checked (fees, areas, services, hours, contact, team), with an error list |
| Source share | How often each website is cited. Feeds your source map (lesson 7.1) |
| Sentiment | How you're described: positive, neutral or negative, judged by you, not a tool |
| AI visits | Sessions in Analytics from AI assistants. Expect an undercount |
| Enquiries | Valuations, viewings and calls by source, including people who say AI sent them |
| Position | Not recommended. Order changes every run |
The free reports from Google and Bing
1Search Console: Generative AI performance report
FreeImpressions of your pages in AI Overviews, AI Mode and Discover's AI features, by page, country, device and date. No clicks and no searches. Rolled out to all sites on 31 August 2026; sites with very few appearances may not see it.
2Bing Webmaster Tools: AI Performance
FreeHow often Copilot and Bing's AI answers cite your pages, which pages, and a sample of the searches they ran. It counts citations, not clicks, and not recommendations of you by name.
Open Bing Webmaster Tools: AI Performance (opens in a new tab)3Google Analytics: AI Assistant channel
FreeVisits from ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and others (lesson 9.1). Google's own AI Overviews and AI Mode visits stay in Organic Search.
Open Google Analytics: AI Assistant channel (opens in a new tab)4Crawler logs from your host
Free (ask your host)Which AI crawlers fetched which pages and whether they got errors. A fetch by ChatGPT-User or Perplexity-User suggests a person's question led to your page. It doesn't show whether you were recommended.
Open Crawler logs from your host (opens in a new tab)The one-page monthly report
- 1Headline in one sentence, with the number of answers behind it.
- 2The measures above: this month, last month and baseline, each with its count.
- 3Results by audience: sellers, landlords, buyers, tenants.
- 4Who else was named, and which sources were cited.
- 5Accuracy: errors found, fixed and still open.
- 6AI visits, Search Console and Bing figures.
- 7Enquiries by source, including self-reported AI.
- 8What you changed this month.
- 9The three actions for next month.
- 10Caveats: sample size, and anything that changed in how you tested.
How not to fool yourself
- Never judge from one run, one platform or one day.
- Never reword a prompt to get a better result.
- Record the conditions every time: platform, logged in or out, location, date.
- Show the count next to every percentage, and don't compare a month of 30 answers with a month of 150.
- With under about 100 answers a month, treat moves of less than about 10 points as noise, and look at three months, not one.
- Don't claim a cause. If you made six changes, you don't know which one mattered.
- Track accuracy and enquiries, not just visibility. They're what matter.
A worked example (invented numbers)
| Measure | Baseline | Month 3 | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mention rate | 18 of 144 (12.5%) | 29 of 144 (20.1%) | Up 7.6 points |
| Citation rate | 9 of 144 (6.3%) | 17 of 144 (11.8%) | Up 5.5 points |
| Branded answers with an error | 3 of 8 | 1 of 8 | Old fee and hours fixed |
| AI assistant visits | 14 of 4,100 | 23 of 4,300 | Undercounts |
| Enquiries that said AI | 1 | 3 | Self-reported |
What you can’t measure
- How many people saw an answer naming you. No AI company provides it, and tools' "prompt volumes" are estimates.
- Clicks from Google's AI features separately from ordinary search.
- Visits that lose their label and land in Direct.
- Someone told your name who then rings or searches, unless they tell you.
- What one particular person, with their own history and location, was shown.
02Keep it up
That's lesson 10.1
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