Beyond Rankings: How Marketers Can Evaluate AI Search Visibility Without Confusing It with Traffic

Abstract

A literature review and practitioner framework for evaluating AI search visibility. The paper reviews the GEO benchmark (KDD 2024), an independent replication (C-SEO Bench), Pew Research’s US browsing study, Ahrefs’ keyword analysis and Google’s 2026 documentation. It finds that evidence for GEO tactics is mixed, that AI summaries are associated with fewer clicks in observational data, that Google describes optimizing for generative AI search as still SEO, and that almost no evidence exists for India. It proposes a four-layer measurement framework (technical eligibility, AI-answer visibility, referral behaviour, business outcomes) and a 30-day pilot protocol for small businesses. No original experiments or analytics data were collected. All sources were last checked on 14 October 2026.