How it works
How RankForward gets you recommended by AI
Our process is built on peer-reviewed research from Princeton University (ACM KDD 2024) and real-world testing across the 50+ businesses we have scored.
Step 1
Submit Your URL
Enter your business website and we ask ChatGPT and Perplexity if they recommend you. You get your AI visibility score, your baseline, within 24 hours. Free.
We test prompts like "Who is the best [your industry] in [your city]?" Most businesses score between 0 and 3 out of 10. This is not a guess. It is a real measurement of how AI sees your business today.
Step 2
We Audit & Optimize
Our team analyzes your AI visibility across all six engines we monitor and builds a custom GEO roadmap. We identify exactly where you are invisible and what content changes will get you cited.
The Princeton GEO research identified 9 specific content optimization methods that increase AI citation rates. We apply the ones most relevant to your business:
- Authoritative tone and language
- Credible citations and statistics
- Structured data and schema markup
- Third-party citation building
- Content restructuring for LLM readability
Step 3
You Get Recommended
We optimize your digital presence so AI engines cite your business when customers ask who to hire in your market. Monthly tracking shows your progress as AI engines start recognizing and recommending you.
Every month, we re-run the full prompt battery, measure score changes, and report what is working. You watch your AI visibility score climb as the optimizations compound over time.
Why you can't DIY this
The research is public. Our system is not.
Anyone can read the Princeton paper. What you cannot download is the system we run it with: proprietary software that queries six AI engines every month, a citation database built from every scan we have ever run, and playbooks tuned against thousands of real AI answers.
That is why we can tell you, with real data, whether the work is working. A do-it-yourself effort cannot see what AI is saying at scale, so it never knows.
6
AI engines monitored
20+
buyer-style questions per audit
120+
real AI answers scored in your first audit
4
geographic levels tracked, city to national
9
Princeton-proven content methods
The evidence
Built on Princeton University Research
Our methodology is grounded in the landmark GEO study published at ACM KDD 2024 by researchers at Princeton University, Georgia Tech, the Allen Institute, and IIT Delhi.
The research tested 9 content optimization methods across thousands of queries and found that systematic optimization can increase AI citation visibility by up to 40%. Key findings include:
- Content with statistics and cited sources gets cited significantly more often
- Authoritative language and expert quotations boost citation rates
- Structured, factual content outperforms generic marketing copy
- Third-party corroboration across multiple sources builds AI trust