Representative example
A sample Foundation Review
The Foundation Review is the first thing every audit produces, and the one step we ask you to approve. Before AI engines can recommend you, they have to be able to read you, trust the structure, and find the answer. So the review maps your market, buyers, and competitors, then checks the technical foundation AI reads and flags what's blocking citations today. The company below is invented to show the shape. A real Foundation Review runs on your own category, your own buyers, and a scan of your own site.
If you've just ordered an audit, this is what's landing in your inbox, and how to review it.
A Foundation Review answers one question before any score is produced: are we measuring you in the right world, and can AI even read you today? It has two halves. First, the market map: your category, the people who buy, what they evaluate, why they search, and who you're compared against. Second, the technical foundation: whether AI crawlers can reach you, how citable your content is, and the specific findings blocking you. You approve it, and that starts your audit. Everything below is built to demonstrate the deliverable. None of it is real customer data.
Overview
The cover: who we analyzed, how much of the site, and the headline count of what we found.
GEO Foundation Review
[Client]
Work management for distributed teams
Before AI engines can recommend you, they have to be able to read you, trust the structure, and find the answer. This review maps your market, buyers, and competitors, then checks the technical foundation and flags what blocks citations today.
What this is and what to check
The severity counts are your at-a-glance read on how much is in the way of citations right now. A pile of critical and high findings is common and fixable; it's the map of the work, not a verdict. Confirm the basics first: the right company, the right category, and a page count that looks like your real site, not a stray subdomain.
Company profile
How the engines should resolve what you are: your category, your segment, your products, and the names you go by.
Work management / project management software for distributed teams
What this is and what to check
This is the identity every query and score inherits. If the category is wrong, the whole audit measures the wrong market. Read it as if an engine wrote it about you to a buyer: is this the category you actually compete in, and are these the products and names buyers would search? The "also known as" list matters because engines have to connect every variant of your name to one company.
Who buys this
The 5 buyer personas that shape how AI describes this category. Your visibility is measured against each. Personas are shown by role, not by name.
Head of Remote Operations
Operations
Project Manager
Delivery / PMO
Engineering Manager
Engineering
RevOps Manager
Revenue Operations
Founder / Owner
Executive
What this is and what to check
Each persona becomes a slice of the query set, so a missing or wrong persona means a missing slice of your market in the final scores. Check that these are the roles who actually sign and use the product, and that whoever really controls the budget is here with veto power. The most common correction is adding the decision-maker who got left off.
Who you're compared against
6 competitors AI weighs you against when buyers ask for recommendations. These define who you're measured next to in share of voice and head-to-head visibility. Shown as illustrative archetypes rather than named brands.
The category incumbent buyers benchmark everyone else against.
The agency favorite, strong on client-facing reporting.
The dev-tool-native option engineering teams default to.
The all-in-one suite that surfaces in "simple PM" searches.
The async/remote specialist closest to your own positioning.
The low-cost challenger that wins on price in early comparisons.
What this is and what to check
This set is the scoreboard your share of voice is measured on, so it has to match reality. The audit can also surface "surprise competitors" the engines name that you didn't list, but it benchmarks you carefully only against the brands defined here. The most common correction is adding a competitor you actually lose deals to, or fixing a tier that's set too high or too low.
What buyers evaluate
The capability taxonomy buyers ask about, and where your content reads as strong or thin today. The quote is the buyer's own language for each.
"does it handle teams across time zones automatically?"
"can we cut standups and still know status?"
"can I see what's blocking what across teams?"
"does it connect to the tools we already use?"
"can I see who's overloaded before it's a problem?"
"can leadership get a portfolio view without me building it?"
What this is and what to check
Strong means your public content already answers that capability question well; weak means the answer is thin or missing, so an engine reaches for a competitor instead. These ratings preview where the action plan will concentrate. Check that the capabilities you actually win on are here, and flag any "weak" that's really a strength your content just isn't telling.
Why buyers search
The problems that send buyers to AI in the first place, in their own words, with who feels each one.
"work stalls overnight waiting on another region"
"I spend half my week chasing updates"
"we find the blockers the day they bite us"
"execs ask for a status I can't easily produce"
What this is and what to check
These are the early-funnel moments where buyers first describe the pain, often before they know your category exists, and where most B2B brands are invisible. The severity flags which pains matter most, and the tags connect each pain to the persona who feels it and the capability that answers it. Confirm these are the problems your real buyers describe, in language they'd actually use.
AI crawler access
2 of 8 AI crawlers are blocked. A blocked crawler cannot index your content, so the engine it feeds can never cite you, no matter how good the page is. This is the first thing to fix.
What this is and what to check
This is the most mechanical, highest-leverage part of the whole review. No content fix matters on an engine whose crawler can't reach you. A "not specified" crawler is a softer flag: it's allowed by default but worth an explicit rule. There's usually nothing for you to correct here; it's a fix for whoever owns the site's robots.txt and edge rules.
Content quality signals
AI platforms preferentially cite fresh, well-structured, deeply-covered pages they can extract clean passages from. Here's how your indexed pages score.
What this is and what to check
These scores explain why a page that reads fine to a human still doesn't get cited. Low depth and extractability mean engines can't lift a clean answer from the page; low freshness means it's trusted less. You don't correct these numbers; they set the agenda for the action plan, which targets the weakest signals first.
Findings
14 findings, ordered by severity. Each is a concrete, owner-assigned fix. A representative sample follows.
What we found
PerplexityBot and CCBot are disallowed in robots.txt.
Why it matters
Two engines your buyers use can't read the site, so they can never cite [Client] regardless of content quality.
Recommended fix
Allow both crawlers in robots.txt and confirm no edge or WAF rule blocks them.
Scope: robots.txt, site-wide
What we found
The capabilities buyers ask about most, cross-timezone scheduling and dependency tracking, live in marketing one-liners, not in pages that answer the question directly.
Why it matters
Engines cite pages that answer the question in extractable language; thin coverage cedes the answer to a competitor.
Recommended fix
Publish dedicated, well-structured pages for the top capabilities, written in the buyer's own phrasing.
Scope: /features/*, new pages
What we found
Key pages lack SoftwareApplication and Offer schema.
Why it matters
Without schema, engines struggle to resolve what [Client] is and which category it competes in.
Recommended fix
Add SoftwareApplication and Offer JSON-LD to the product and pricing pages.
Scope: /, /pricing/
What we found
Several high-traffic pages haven't been updated in 14+ months.
Why it matters
Stale pages are cited less; freshness is both a ranking and a citation signal.
Recommended fix
Refresh and re-date the highest-traffic capability and comparison pages.
Scope: top 10 pages
What this is and what to check
Findings are the actionable core of the review: every one names what's wrong, why it costs you citations, who owns the fix, and how much effort it takes. They're ordered by severity so the highest-leverage fixes come first. You don't approve or reject findings; they're a diagnosis of your real site. They're also what the action plan turns into specific, sequenced work.
How to review & approve
Reading your own Foundation Review takes about five minutes. Here's how to do it well, and what each decision means.
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1
Read it top to bottom
The market map first (profile, buyers, competitors, what they evaluate, why they search), then the technical foundation (crawler access, content quality, findings).
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2
Check the map against how you actually sell
Are these the buyers who sign, the competitors you lose deals to, the capabilities you win on? The technical findings are a diagnosis of your real site, so there's nothing to approve there; just the map is yours to correct.
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3
Approve, or request changes
In your account, approve the foundation or request changes with a note on what to fix. Requesting changes is normal and expected, not a setback.
Approve when
The profile, buyers, competitors, and capabilities all match how you actually go to market. Approval starts the clock: your query set lands within 20 minutes, then your full visibility report within 24 hours. If your audit includes an action plan, it comes with the report.
Request changes when
A key persona is missing, a competitor you lose deals to isn't listed, a capability is mis-rated, or the category misreads what you sell. Tell us what to fix; we revise and send it back for approval.
Why we make you approve it
The foundation maps your market and drives query generation and every downstream score. Your approval is the quality gate that makes the audit yours rather than ours. One thing it does not do: approving the foundation never unlocks or charges you for the action plan. That's a separate part of the audit. Approval only starts the visibility run.
What happens next
Your Foundation Review is the first step
When your Foundation Review lands, open it in your account, read it, and approve it, or request changes if something's off. Approval starts the clock: your query set lands first, usually within 20 minutes, and your full visibility report follows within 24 hours, scored across ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity. If your audit includes the action plan, it arrives with the report.
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Frequently asked questions
What people ask most when they first see a sample Foundation Review.
Is this a real company's Foundation Review?
No. It is a representative example built with illustrative data to show the shape of the deliverable. The company, personas, competitors, and findings are invented. A real Foundation Review is built on your own category, your own buyers, your own competitive set, and a scan of your own site.
How long does my Foundation Review take?
It's usually ready for your review within an hour of ordering your audit. From there it waits for you. Nothing is measured until you review and approve it.
What if something in it is wrong?
Request changes. Add a missing persona, a competitor you actually lose deals to, or correct the category framing. Requesting changes is normal and expected. We revise it and send it back for approval. It's better to fix the map now than to measure against a wrong one.
Does approving the foundation unlock or charge me for the action plan?
No. Approving your foundation only starts the visibility run. The action plan is a separate part of the audit and is never unlocked or charged by approving the foundation.
What happens after I approve it?
Approval starts the clock. Your buyer-intent query set lands first, usually within 20 minutes, and your full visibility report follows within 24 hours, scored across ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity. If your audit includes the action plan, it arrives with the report.
Why do I have to approve it at all?
The foundation maps your market and drives query generation and every downstream score. Your approval is the quality gate: it makes sure we measure you against the right category, the right buyers, and the right competitors before any numbers are produced.