On 8 July our own site scored 53 out of 100 on the GEO audit we sell. On 23 July the same audit returned 71. Below is what changed between those two numbers — including the work that produced no measurable movement at all.
We publish this for a simple reason: an agency that sells measurement should show its own measurements. The first audit is here if you want the starting point.
The two scores, side by side
| Category | 8 July | 23 July | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| AI platform readiness | 60 | 75 | +15 |
| Content quality / E-E-A-T | 72 | 90 | +18 |
| Technical foundation | 55 | 60 | +5 |
| Structured data | 70 | 85 | +15 |
| Brand authority | 5 | 35 | +30 |
| Composite | 53 | 71 | +18 |
What moved the number most
1. Putting a human on the site (+18 on content)
The single biggest content jump came from the least technical change. Every article was signed "Mentio". Now every article is signed by a named person, with a Person node in the structured data, linked by @id to the organisation as its founder.
Nothing else about the articles changed. Same words, same structure. The score moved because E-E-A-T is not a writing-quality metric — it is an accountability metric. An unsigned page has nobody standing behind it.
2. Existing on more than one website (+30 on authority)
Brand authority went from 5 to 35 purely by existing in places we did not control. A company page, a Crunchbase entry, a social profile — each one saying the same name, the same description, the same URL.
The number is still low, and it should be. Thirty-five out of a hundred is an honest score for a brand that is a few weeks old. This is the category that cannot be rushed.
3. llms.txt, FAQ markup and language versions (+15 each)
These are the standard technical wins and they behaved exactly as expected. A machine-readable summary of the site, question-and-answer markup that mirrors how people actually ask, and six language versions correctly cross-linked with hreflang.
What produced almost nothing
Technical foundation moved five points. Five. We spent real time on it, and the reason it barely moved is worth knowing: our host could not send custom HTTP headers at all. No amount of on-page work fixes a limitation that lives one layer below your site. We solved it later, by putting a proxy in front — and that is a separate story with its own trap.
Publishing more articles, on its own, moved nothing. Volume is not a ranking input for AI systems the way it sometimes is for classic search. Two of our articles are cited-shaped — specific, self-contained, answerable. The rest are fine and contribute nothing measurable yet.
What is still broken
Zero reviews. No AggregateRating, no Review markup, because we have no real reviews to point at. We will not invent them: fabricated ratings get the markup stripped from search results, and for an agency selling trust that is the worst possible trade. This stays broken until real clients leave real feedback.
No verified business listing. Partially a choice, partially a platform limitation for our location.
The honest lesson
On-page GEO is a sprint you control. Crawler access, structured data, llms.txt, content shape — a competent developer moves those in a week, and our numbers show it: four categories jumped double digits in fourteen days.
Off-page authority is a season you schedule. It went up thirty points and still sits at thirty-five, because it is built from other people's websites mentioning you, and you cannot deploy that on a Tuesday.
If someone tells you they can fix both in the same sprint, ask which one they are lying about.
Want to know how AI assistants see your website? Run the free check — we reply with a summary of what ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini currently say about your business.
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