How to Measure Your GEO Success: The Metrics That Actually Matter

"Is This Even Working?"

You've read about GEO. You've optimized your product descriptions. You've added structured data and FAQ sections. You've done the work.

But here's the question that keeps you up at night: How do you know if any of this is actually working?

With traditional SEO, it's simple. You check your rankings. Position 5 to position 3? Progress. More organic traffic? Great.

But GEO doesn't work like that. There's no "AI ranking" dashboard. No position tracker for ChatGPT recommendations.

So let's talk about what you can measure, and more importantly, what those numbers actually mean for your business.

Why Traditional Metrics Fall Short

First, let's be honest about what we're dealing with.

When someone asks ChatGPT for a product recommendation, there's no click tracked. No referrer logged. No UTM parameter attached. The user might hear about your brand, open a new tab, and type your URL directly.

That visit shows up in your analytics as "direct traffic." Which tells you... basically nothing.

This is frustrating. I get it. We're used to measuring everything with precision. But the reality is that AI recommendations work more like word-of-mouth than traditional advertising. And we've never been great at measuring word-of-mouth either.

That said, there are meaningful ways to track your progress. They just require a different mindset.

The Metrics That Actually Tell You Something

1. AI Mention Frequency

This one's straightforward but tedious: How often do AI assistants mention your brand?

Here's how to check:

• Go to ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and Gemini
• Ask 10-15 questions that a potential customer might ask
• Questions about your product category, specific problems you solve, comparisons
• Note when you're mentioned, and when competitors are mentioned instead

Do this once a month. Track it in a simple spreadsheet.

Yes, it's manual. Yes, it takes time. But it gives you something real. If you were mentioned 0 times in January and 4 times in February, that's progress you can actually see.

Pro tip: Don't just ask "What's the best [your product]?" Ask the way real customers would: "I need something that does X but also Y, what should I get?" The more natural the question, the more accurate your test.

2. Brand Search Volume

Here's something interesting: when AI recommends a brand, people often Google it afterwards.

They want to learn more. See the website. Check reviews. Confirm that this recommendation is legit.

So track your branded search volume over time. You can use Google Search Console for this (it's free). Look at:

• Searches for your exact brand name
• Searches for "brand name + reviews"
• Searches for "brand name + product type"

If your GEO efforts are working, you should see these numbers gradually climb. Not overnight, but over months.

3. Direct Traffic Patterns

Remember how I said AI referrals often show up as direct traffic? Let's use that.

Look at your direct traffic trends, but dig deeper:

• Is direct traffic growing faster than your other channels?
• Do you see spikes that don't correlate with your marketing campaigns?
• What pages are these direct visitors landing on?

If you're getting more direct traffic to specific product pages, that might be AI-driven. People heard about the product from ChatGPT, came directly to check it out.

It's not proof, but it's a clue.

4. Your AI Readiness Score

This is where tools actually help. An AI readiness audit gives you a concrete score based on how well your site is structured for AI understanding.

Track this score over time. As you make improvements:

• Better structured data? Score goes up.
• Clearer product descriptions? Score goes up.
• More comprehensive FAQ sections? Score goes up.

The score itself matters less than the trend. Are you improving month over month?

5. Competitive Share of Voice

This might be the most important metric, and it's often overlooked.

When AI answers questions in your space, who gets mentioned? You? Your competitors? Someone you've never heard of?

Map this out:

Question Type	Your Mentions	Competitor A	Competitor B
Best product for X	2/10	5/10	3/10
How to solve Y	4/10	4/10	2/10
Comparison queries	1/10	6/10	3/10

Now you know where to focus. If competitors dominate comparison queries, improve your comparison content. If you're never mentioned for a specific use case, create content around that.

Setting Up Your Baseline

Before you can track progress, you need to know where you're starting.

Spend a day doing a thorough baseline assessment:

Step 1: AI Mention Audit

• Ask 20+ relevant questions across ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI
• Record every mention of your brand and competitors
• Note the context: were you the first recommendation? Mentioned as an alternative? Listed but not recommended?

Step 2: Current Metrics Snapshot

• Brand search volume (from Google Search Console)
• Direct traffic numbers (from your analytics)
• AI readiness score (from Recomaze)

Step 3: Competitor Benchmarks

• Run the same AI queries for 3-4 main competitors
• Note their AI readiness (you can audit competitor URLs too)
• Document their strengths: what are they doing that gets them mentioned?

Save all of this. You'll thank yourself in three months when you want to measure progress.

How Often Should You Check?

Here's a realistic schedule:

Weekly: Quick spot-check. Pick 3-5 questions, see if anything changed dramatically. Takes 15 minutes.

Monthly: Full AI mention audit. All platforms, 15-20 questions. Document everything. Compare to last month.

Quarterly: Deep analysis. Metrics review, competitor comparison, strategy adjustment. This is when you decide what to focus on next.

Don't obsess over daily fluctuations. AI models get updated, answers vary, and short-term changes mean nothing. Look for trends over months, not days.

The Metrics That Don't Matter (Yet)

Let me save you some time. These things aren't worth tracking right now:

AI referral traffic in analytics: It's too inconsistent and unreliable. Some AI platforms send referrer data, most don't, and the ones that do change their approach regularly.

"AI SEO" tool rankings: Some tools claim to show your "AI ranking." Be skeptical. There's no standardized ranking in AI recommendations. These tools are guessing.

Exact citation counts: AI doesn't always cite sources. When it does, the citation format varies. Trying to count exact citations is a rabbit hole.

Focus on the meaningful signals. Ignore the noise.

Connecting GEO to Business Results

At the end of the day, mentions and scores are just proxy metrics. What you actually care about is: Is this driving business?

Here's how to connect the dots:

For e-commerce: Track conversion rates on pages getting more direct traffic. If AI is sending people to your product pages, are they buying?

For lead generation: Ask new leads how they heard about you. "AI assistant" or "ChatGPT recommended" might start showing up as answers.

For brand awareness: Survey your customers periodically. "Have you seen us mentioned by AI assistants?" is a legitimate question now.

For everyone: Look at customer quality. AI recommendations tend to send better-qualified traffic. People who arrive after an AI recommendation already have intent and some trust built in.

What Good Progress Looks Like

Let's be realistic about timelines. GEO isn't a quick win.

Month 1-2: You're establishing baselines, making technical improvements, updating content. Expect minimal change in AI mentions.

Month 3-4: Your improvements are getting indexed and processed. You might start seeing your AI readiness score improve. Maybe a few more mentions here and there.

Month 5-6: This is typically when the compound effect kicks in. More mentions lead to more trust signals, which lead to more mentions. The flywheel starts turning.

6+ months: If you've been consistent, you should see meaningful differences in mention frequency, brand search volume, and hopefully business metrics too.

Is this slower than you'd like? Probably. But it's reality. Anyone promising faster results is selling something.

Your Action Plan for This Week

Don't just read this and move on. Do something:

Run your baseline audit today. Start with an AI readiness check to get your score.

Ask 10 questions about your industry in ChatGPT and Perplexity. Document who gets mentioned.

Set up a simple tracking spreadsheet. Columns: Date, Platform, Question, Your Mentions, Competitor Mentions, Notes.

Schedule a monthly check-in in your calendar. 30 minutes, same time each month, to update your metrics.

That's it. Nothing fancy. Just consistent tracking so you can actually see progress instead of guessing.

The businesses that win at GEO aren't the ones with the best content or the biggest budgets. They're the ones who measure, learn, and improve systematically.

Start measuring. The rest follows.

Get Your AI Readiness Score →