AEO and GEO for car dealers

How to choose an AEO agency for your dealership: 15 questions to ask

By Michael Garber, Co-founder, AutoLander · Updated October 11, 2026

Short answer

Knowing how to choose an AEO agency comes down to asking questions whose answers you can check. A good agency shows you the raw answers ChatGPT, Claude and other assistants give, follows Google’s review and spam rules, lets you approve every page, works through manager access instead of your passwords, and never promises a spot in an AI answer. Use the 15 questions below on every vendor you talk to, AutoLander included.

What does an AEO agency do for a dealership?

An AEO agency, sometimes called a GEO agency, does the work that helps AI assistants find, trust and name your store. It keeps AI search crawlers able to read your site and vehicle pages, runs your Business Profile and listings, handles reviews by the rules, writes answer pages and measures what assistants actually say about you.

Much of that sits on top of ordinary search work. Google says there are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode beyond being indexed and eligible for a snippet, which is the SEO your website vendor already sells. An AEO agency adds what assistants read and repeat: robots.txt rules for OAI-SearchBot, Claude-SearchBot and PerplexityBot, prices and mileage as text on every VDP, and the same store facts on every listing. Our explainer on the difference between AEO and SEO draws the line between the two.

For a dealership the jobs have dealer names: the sales and service Business Profiles, DealerRater and the marketplace dealer profiles, review requests from your own CRM or DMS, and a fix list your website provider or OEM website program has to apply. That is the scope of AEO and GEO for car dealers as AutoLander sells it, and the scope to hold any agency to.

What should you ask about how they measure?

Ask which AI assistants they check, how many times they ask each question, whether you see the raw answers, and whether the score comes with a margin. Answers change from run to run, so one screenshot proves little. Google also warns that no outside tool can see inside its ranking or AI systems.

Which assistants, by name? ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, Microsoft Copilot, Google AI Overviews and Google AI Mode pick their sources in different ways. A report that just says “AI” cannot be checked.
How many runs per question? The same question can get a different answer on the next run, so ask how many runs sit behind every number.
Do you get the raw answers, with a margin? Each report should show the text every assistant returned, labeled by assistant, with its sources and a score range. A move inside that range is noise.
Does the tool claim inside data? Google’s AI optimization guide says “No third-party tool has access to our internal ranking or AI systems.”
What do you read in my own numbers? Ask how they use GA4 and Search Console. Our guide on how to measure AI visibility lays out a method you can run yourself.

Why can’t an honest agency guarantee results?

An honest agency cannot guarantee results because no one outside the companies that build the assistants controls what they say, and OpenAI, Google and Microsoft each say so in their own documentation. An agency controls its own work, such as fixes shipped, pages published and reviews answered, and it should put dates on those.

OpenAI’s help page on ChatGPT search says results are ranked using multiple factors meant to find relevant, reliable information, and that placement is not guaranteed, so no one can sell a dealer a spot there. Microsoft’s Bing Webmaster Guidelines say “GEO does not guarantee grounding or citations in AI experiences.” And Google’s Business Profile help says there is no way to request or pay for a better local ranking on Google.

So read every proposal for its verbs. “We send your fix list to your vendor within 3 business days” is a commitment you can check. “ChatGPT will recommend you within 90 days” is a claim no one can back.

What should you ask about reviews?

Ask exactly how the agency gets more reviews, because Google and the FTC both set rules here. The safe answer is a neutral request to every sold customer through a link or QR code, with no gifts, no filtering out unhappy buyers and no staff quotas. Gifts, filtering or quotas break rules your profile depends on.

Do you offer anything for a review? Google’s review guidance says incentives such as free or discounted goods or services in exchange for reviews are strictly prohibited. A free oil change for a review counts.
Do you only ask the happy ones? Google’s Maps content policy bars selectively asking for positive reviews, often called review gating.
Do salespeople get review quotas? The same policy says businesses should not ask staff to collect a certain number of reviews.
Would anything break the FTC’s rule? The FTC’s final rule on fake reviews, announced August 14, 2024, bans fake reviews, buying positive or negative reviews and undisclosed insider reviews.
Who approves the hard replies? Google recommends replying in a timely manner and says replies should not be promotional. Ask who at your store signs off on a reply to a 1-star review, and see our guide on how reviews shape AI recommendations.

What should you ask about content?

Ask who writes each page, who at your store approves it, what first-hand facts it adds, and why the number of pages makes sense. Google’s spam policies cover mass-produced pages made mainly to game rankings however they are made, including with AI, so page count alone should never impress you.

Who writes, and who approves? A page about your trade-in process should be checked by the person who runs trade-ins, and nothing should go live without your sign-off.
What does each page add that only you know? Your reconditioning steps, your loaner policy, the lenders you actually use. Google’s guidance on generative AI content says generating many pages without adding value for users may violate its scaled content abuse policy.
How many pages, and why? Google’s AI optimization guide says “a high quantity of pages doesn’t make a website higher quality.”
Where do prices come from? A page that states last week’s price hands an assistant a wrong fact to repeat. Our guide to answer pages for car dealerships shows how a good one stays current.

What should you ask about sponsored placements and links?

Ask whether any paid mention is labeled as advertising and whether its links carry a sponsored or nofollow tag. Paying for an article that mentions your store can be legitimate. Paying for hidden links meant to lift rankings is link spam under Google’s rules, and unlabeled ads run into FTC guidance.

Is it labeled as an ad? The FTC’s native advertising guide says an ad should not suggest it is anything other than an ad, and names clear labels such as “Advertisement” and “Sponsored Advertising Content.”
Are the links tagged? Google’s spam policies treat links bought for ranking as link spam and accept paid links for advertising when they carry rel="sponsored" or rel="nofollow". Google also asks site owners to mark paid placements with the sponsored value.
Why that publication? A placement is worth paying for only where buyers and assistants already read about your market.
Who checks each delivery? On AutoLander’s AI Authority and Market Leader plans, every placement is labeled as sponsored, its links are tagged, and we check each delivery for the link, your store’s name, the tag and the label.

What should you ask about access and ownership?

Ask for manager roles and user invites, never your passwords, and get it in writing that you own every profile, listing, page and video the agency builds. If you leave, you should keep all of it, and the agency’s access should be removed on a date you can check.

Will you ask for any password? The work runs on manager roles and user invites; an agency that wants your Google login is asking for more control than the job needs.
Who is the owner of record? You should own the Business Profile and every listing, and answer pages should live on your own website.
Will you log in to my DMS or CRM? Review requests can run inside your own system, switched on by your admin.
What happens when I leave? Get the dates for access removal and data deletion in writing. At AutoLander that is within 5 business days for access and 30 days for your scan data and reports.

How to choose an AEO agency: which 15 questions should you ask before you sign?

Print these 15 questions and ask them of every agency you talk to, AutoLander included. Good answers are specific, dated and checkable. Vague answers, secret tools and any claim of a guaranteed spot in ChatGPT or Google, which no one can deliver, are your cue to keep looking.

1. Which AI assistants do you check, by name, and how many times do you ask each question?
2. Will I see the raw answers and cited sources every month, labeled by assistant?
3. Does your score come with a margin, and how big a change counts as real?
4. Does any tool you use claim access to Google’s internal ranking or AI data?
5. What will you never promise me, and will you put that list in writing?
6. What happens in the first 30 days, with dates I can check?
7. Which website fixes go to my vendor, and who chases them until they are live?
8. Will you ever change my business name, address or main category without my sign-off?
9. How do you ask for reviews, and do you confirm no incentives, no gating and no staff quotas?
10. Who drafts review replies, and who at my store approves a reply to a 1-star review?
11. Who writes each page, what first-hand facts does it add, and does anything go live without my approval?
12. Are paid placements labeled as ads, with links tagged sponsored or nofollow?
13. Do you need any of my passwords, or only manager roles and user invites?
14. Do I own every profile, listing, page and video you build, including after I leave?
15. Is the contract month to month, and when is your access removed and my data deleted if I cancel?

Sources

Every platform rule on this page links to the page it came from. Checked September 30, 2026.

Frequently asked questions

Should my current SEO agency also do AEO?

It can, if it answers the same 15 questions well. Much of the work overlaps with SEO. Ask about the parts a classic SEO report leaves out: AI search crawler access, review handling by Google’s rules, and the raw answers ChatGPT and Claude give for your market.

Is an AI visibility dashboard enough proof of work?

No. Ask for the raw answers behind it, labeled by assistant, plus links to every fix, page and review reply made that month. Google says no third-party tool has access to its internal ranking or AI systems, so any score is an outside measurement with a margin.

How long should an AEO contract be?

Month to month is a fair ask. OpenAI says robots.txt updates take about 24 hours to be reflected for OAI-SearchBot, while reviews and mentions on other sites build over months. That is a reason to keep checking the work, and no reason for a long lock-in. AutoLander’s plans are month to month.

What should an AEO agency never ask for?

Your passwords, your customer list, or the right to publish pages and review replies without your approval. Manager roles and user invites cover the profiles and listings, and every page should need your sign-off.

Ask us the same 15 questions

Start with the free scan: ChatGPT and Claude, web search on, up to 20 local buyer questions, 3 runs each. Then put all 15 questions to us on your 20-minute walkthrough.

Get my free scan →

Free · No logins needed · Checked by a person · 20-minute walkthrough