Find it, fix it, verify it
Three verbs sit in the margin of our homepage. They are the whole method: a problem you can point to, a change you can make, and a result you can check. Here is what each one means, and why we hold to it.
Why these three
Nobody can promise a ranking or an AI recommendation — those belong to systems that change without notice. What can be promised is narrower and more useful: every claim on this site can be traced, acted on, and tested. If one of the three is missing, we would rather say less.
Find it
Without it, a score moves and nobody knows why.
A problem you can point to
A finding names what was observed, where, and under which rule. “Your SEO needs work” is not a finding; “robots.txt line 4 blocks /guides/” is.
- Every rule has a stable id, a scope and a stated basis.
- Rule-based checks, human judgment and sampled observations are kept apart.
- What was not checked is listed as “not checked” — never as passing.
Fix it
Without it, a report is a list of worries.
A change you can make
A finding should end in something you can do: which line, which tag, which page. The reasoning and its limits come with it, so you can decide whether it applies to your site.
- Rules point to the guide that teaches the fix.
- Guides explain why a fix works, and where it stops applying.
- Nothing changes on your site without you — suggestions stop at your approval.
Verify it
Without it, nobody learns whether the work did anything.
A result you can check
After the change, check again and compare. One snapshot is context, not proof; a rate means something only with its sample size and what was excluded.
- After you ship, re-run the same check on the same page.
- Numbers come with denominators: “6 of 18 valid responses”, not “33%”.
- AI answers vary by day, region and language — observations say so.
The longer version
The methodology page sets out every principle behind this, including what AI visibility observations cannot tell you.