· AI-SEO· GEO· Case Study

We Are Our Own Case Study: Documenting Raptor’s AI-SEO Journey

A public log of how we apply our own AI-SEO methodology to raptorai.dev: baseline metrics, weekly experiments, and what actually moves the needle in LLM visibility.

Most agencies sell AI-SEO without ever showing it work. We are taking the opposite approach. Raptor AI is going to apply our own methodology to raptorai.dev in public. Every experiment, every result, every miss, so prospective clients can judge the work before they hire us.

Why we are doing this in public

New agencies hit a chicken-and-egg problem: you need case studies to win clients, but you need clients to build case studies. The substitute proof that actually compounds is to be your own case study. If our methodology works on a four-page agency site with zero domain authority, it will work on yours.

Baseline (Day 0, 2026-05-06)

Honest starting point, recorded so we cannot revise it later:

  • Indexable pages: 4 (/, /seo-for-ai, /privacy, /terms)
  • Google Search Console: not yet verified
  • Bing Webmaster Tools: not yet verified
  • Backlinks (rough): minimal
  • LLM brand mentions: unmeasured, need to establish baseline this week
  • Schema in place: Organization. A prior generic SoftwareApplication declaration wrongly described the agency as a free software product and was removed later. Tool schema now belongs only on actual tools.

The methodology we are testing

Three pillars, applied in order. Each gets its own pillar post over the next four weeks.

  1. Trust signals (E-E-A-T). Named authors with Person schema, real bios, public artifacts. LLMs cite authors more readily than anonymous content.
  2. Topical authority. A pillar/cluster model around AI-SEO and GEO: pillar posts deep, supporting posts narrow, every internal link pointing back to the canonical hub at /seo-for-ai.
  3. AI-structured content. Question-led headings, direct answers in the first paragraph, FAQ blocks with FAQPage schema, Article schema on every post, citation-friendly formatting (lists, definitions, claims with sources).

What we are publishing in the next four weeks

  • How to optimize for ChatGPT search
  • Measuring brand visibility in LLMs (with a free tool)
  • GEO vs SEO: what is actually different
  • Schema patterns LLMs actually consume
  • A teardown of a recognizable brand’s AI visibility

How we will report

This post is updated weekly. New rows added to the metrics table below. No metric removed once published. Wins and losses both stay on the page.

Weekly log

Week 0 (2026-05-06): baseline recorded above. Schema and on-page SEO setup shipped.

Week 4 (2026-06-08), first traffic baseline. Vercel Analytics, trailing 30 days. These are small numbers, and we are publishing them anyway. That is the entire point.

  • Visitors: 53 · Page views: 137 (trailing 30 days)
  • Top pages: / (41), /tools/ai-brand-check (15), /insights (11), /seo-for-ai (10)
  • Where visitors come from: X, Facebook, Instagram, Google, Bing
  • Referrals from AI surfaces (ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Overviews): zero, so far. For an AEO case study that is not a failure. It is the number we exist to move. Watch this line.
  • Audience skew: Mexico 43%, US 21%, Germany 13%. The bilingual, cross-border footprint we build for.

Week 5 (2026-06-09), Semrush AI-search cleanup. We used the audit warnings as a forcing function, but not as the strategy. The fixes shipped around authority, crawlability, and page usefulness instead of adding empty text.

  • Added /llms.txt as a concise AI-readable map of Raptor AI, core services, and the most important source pages.
  • Expanded /, /insights, and /tools/ai-brand-check so each page explains its role in AI rankings, audits, AI-ready sites, consulting, and training.
  • Replaced generic anchor text with destination-specific links and added /consulting to the sitemap.
  • Added structured data for the home service, insights collection, AI Brand Check tool, global organization, and website entity.

Week 6 (2026-06-15), trailing-30 snapshot. Same measurement window as Week 4, shifted one week forward. Directional growth, not a clean delta: these windows overlap by roughly 23 days.

  • Visitors: 59 · Page views: 219 (trailing 30 days)
  • Top pages: / (48), /tools/ai-brand-check (12), /insights (11), /seo-for-ai (10), /consulting (6)
  • New in top pages: /for/lawyers (3) and /for/real-estate (3), the vertical pages are now indexed and getting visits.
  • Referrers: t.co (5), Instagram (4), WhatsApp (3), Facebook (2), Google (2), Bing (1)
  • Referrals from AI surfaces (ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Overviews): zero, again. Six weeks in. That line is still the one we exist to move.
  • Audience skew: Mexico 53%, US 12%, Germany 10%.

Week 7 (2026-06-22), trailing-30 snapshot. Visitors held flat week over week. Page views grew on the same visitor base, so sessions went deeper rather than wider. We log the flat number as readily as a rising one.

  • Visitors: 59 · Page views: 259 (trailing 30 days)
  • Top pages: / (54), /insights (12), /tools/ai-brand-check (12), /seo-for-ai (10), /consulting (9), /insights/raptorai-ai-seo-journey (4)
  • New in top pages: /for/dental (3), another vertical page now indexed and getting visits. /consulting climbed from 6 to 9.
  • Referrers: t.co (5), Instagram (4), WhatsApp (3), Facebook (3), Bing (1), Google (1).
  • Referrals from AI surfaces (ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Overviews): zero, still. Seven weeks in. That line is the one we exist to move, and it has not moved.
  • Audience skew: Mexico 59%, US 17%, Germany 7%.

Week 8 (2026-06-29), trailing-30 snapshot. Best raw-traffic reading yet, and still nothing from AI surfaces. These trailing-30 windows overlap heavily, so read direction, not a clean delta.

  • Visitors: 75 · Page views: 264 (trailing 30 days, up from 59 / 259)
  • Top pages: / (70), /tools/ai-brand-check (12), /consulting (11), /insights (10), /seo-for-ai (10), /for/lawyers (6), /for/dental (4)
  • /for/lawyers doubled (3 to 6) and /consulting nearly doubled (6 to 11). Both vertical pages, lawyers and dental, now draw steady visits.
  • Referrers: m.facebook.com (6), facebook.com (5), l.instagram.com (5), WhatsApp (3), google.com (2), l.threads.com (2), linkedin.com (1), search.brave.com (1). Meta properties drive most referred traffic.
  • Referrals from AI surfaces (ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Overviews): zero, again. Eight weeks in. The two search referrers we did get, Google and Brave, were classic web search, not AI answers. This is the line the whole experiment exists to move, and it has not moved.
  • Audience skew: Mexico 52%, US 20%, Germany 7%, with Singapore (4%) and the UK (3%) in the mix.

Week 9 (2026-07-06), trailing-30 snapshot. Highest raw readings so far, and the service pages entered the top-page list for the first time. Still nothing from AI surfaces.

  • Visitors: 97 · Page views: 330 (trailing 30 days, up from 75 / 264)
  • Top pages: / (86), /tools/ai-brand-check (14), /consulting (13), /seo-for-ai (12), /insights (10), /for/real-estate (9), /for/lawyers (7), /for/dental (6)
  • All five service pages now draw visits: /services/ai-memory-systems (6), /services/ai-receptionist (6), /services/web-builds (6), /services/ai-visibility (4), /services/qa-testing (4). /for/hospitality, published July 1, was indexed and receiving visits within the week (3).
  • Referrers: l.instagram.com (9), m.facebook.com (6), facebook.com (5), google.com (3), WhatsApp (3), l.threads.com (2), linkedin.com (1), search.brave.com (1). Meta properties still drive most referred traffic.
  • Referrals from AI surfaces (ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Overviews): zero, again. Nine weeks in. Google and Brave sent classic web search, not AI answers. The line this experiment exists to move has not moved.
  • Audience skew: Mexico 46%, US 28%, Germany 3%. The US share is the highest we have logged.

Week 10 (2026-07-13), trailing-30 snapshot. First decline since this log began, though still the second highest visitor reading on record. Published late, together with Weeks 11 and 12, on 2026-07-27. Still nothing from AI surfaces.

  • Visitors: 89 · Page views: 234 (trailing 30 days, down from 97 / 330)
  • Top pages: / (79), /tools/ai-brand-check (10), /consulting (9), /insights (8), /seo-for-ai (8), /for/real-estate (7), /for/dental (5), /for/lawyers (5), /for/hospitality (3). All five service pages drew 3 to 5 visits each.
  • First appearances in the log: /terms (4), /for/contractors (3), /privacy (2). The contractors page had been live since June 10 and only now cracked the list.
  • Referrers: l.instagram.com (8), m.facebook.com (6), facebook.com (4), google.com (4), WhatsApp (3), l.threads.com (2), linkedin.com (1). Meta properties still lead.
  • Referrals from AI surfaces (ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Overviews): zero, again. Ten weeks in.
  • Audience skew: Mexico 42%, US 31%, with Germany, Norway, Sweden, and Singapore at 3 visitors each. Fifth straight window of US share growth.

Week 11 (2026-07-20), trailing-30 snapshot. Visitors held but sessions thinned: the lowest page-view reading since this log began. Google reached the top of the referrer list for the first time, tied with Instagram. Published late. Still nothing from AI surfaces.

  • Visitors: 92 · Page views: 177 (trailing 30 days; visitors up from 89, views down from 234)
  • Top pages: / (77), /for/real-estate (7, the number-two page for the first time), /consulting (6), /services/ai-receptionist (6), /services/qa-testing (6), /tools/ai-brand-check (6), /for/lawyers (5), /insights (5), /seo-for-ai (5)
  • Referrers: google.com (7) and l.instagram.com (7) tied at the top, then m.facebook.com (6), facebook.com (5), l.threads.com (2), WhatsApp (1), linkedin.com (1).
  • Referrals from AI surfaces (ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Overviews): zero, again. Eleven weeks in. Google arrived as classic web search, not AI answers.
  • Audience skew: US 35%, Mexico 29%, Germany 4%. The first window where the US leads Mexico.

Week 12 (2026-07-27), trailing-30 snapshot. Visitors held near ninety while page views stay well below the Week 9 peak. Google is now the top referrer on its own for the first time in this log. Still nothing from AI surfaces.

  • Visitors: 91 · Page views: 190 (trailing 30 days; 92 / 177 last week)
  • Top pages: / (72), /tools/ai-brand-check (9), /for/real-estate (8), /services/ai-receptionist (8), /services/qa-testing (8), /consulting (7), /seo-for-ai (7), /services/ai-memory-systems (7), /services/web-builds (7), /insights (6)
  • Vertical pages hold a steady floor: /for/contractors (5), /for/dental (5), /for/lawyers (5), /for/hospitality (3). This page itself drew 2.
  • Referrers: google.com (8), facebook.com (7), l.instagram.com (5), m.facebook.com (3), WhatsApp (1), linkedin.com (1). Google alone at the top; Meta properties no longer lead the list.
  • Referrals from AI surfaces (ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Overviews): zero, again. Twelve weeks in. Google is sending classic web search, not AI answers. The line this experiment exists to move has not moved.
  • Audience skew: US 34%, Mexico 23%, Germany 7%, Sweden 7%. The US now clearly leads Mexico.

Week 13 (2026-08-03), trailing-30 snapshot. Sharpest visitor decline in this log so far: visitors dropped from 91 to 69, page views fell with them, and bounce rate climbed. Still nothing from AI surfaces.

  • Visitors: 69 · Page views: 140 (trailing 30 days, down from 91 / 190 last week). Bounce rate 71%.
  • Top pages: / (51), /tools/ai-brand-check (9), /consulting (6), /services/ai-receptionist (6), /services/qa-testing (6), /services/web-builds (6), /insights (5), /services/ai-memory-systems (5), /seo-for-ai (4), /services/ai-visibility (3), /terms (3)
  • Vertical pages: /for/contractors (3), /for/dental (3), /for/hospitality (2), /for/lawyers (2), /for/real-estate (2), /for/professional-services (1)
  • Also captured: this page itself (2), /es/para/servicios-profesionales (1), the first Spanish-language page to appear in this log, /insights/rio-grande-valley-concrete-contractor-site (1), the anonymized RGV case study post, and /privacy (1).
  • Referrers: google.com (10), facebook.com (4), WhatsApp (2), l.instagram.com (1), l.threads.com (1). Google leads by a wide margin now; Meta properties fell further back.
  • Referrals from AI surfaces (ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Overviews): zero, again. Thirteen weeks in.
  • Audience skew: US 35%, Mexico 20%, Germany 9%, Sweden 7%.

Week 14 (2026-08-10), trailing-30 snapshot. Second straight week of decline: page views fell again and bounce rate climbed further, though visitor count held nearly flat. China entered the country list for the first time. Still nothing from AI surfaces.

  • Visitors: 68 · Page views: 127 (trailing 30 days, down from 69 / 140 last week). Bounce rate 78%, up 7 points.
  • Top pages: / (51), /tools/ai-brand-check (8), /consulting (6), /services/web-builds (6), /insights (5), /services/qa-testing (5), /services/ai-memory-systems (4), /services/ai-receptionist (4)
  • First appearance in the log: /services/ai-visibility-audit (3). Holding a second straight week with a visit each: /es/para/servicios-profesionales (1), /for/professional-services (1), and /insights/rio-grande-valley-concrete-contractor-site (1), the anonymized RGV case study post.
  • Referrers: google.com (9), facebook.com (5), WhatsApp (3), l.instagram.com (1), l.threads.com (1). Google still leads by a wide margin.
  • Referrals from AI surfaces (ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Overviews): zero, again. Fourteen weeks in.
  • Audience skew: US 28%, Mexico 18%, China 12%, Germany 10%, Sweden 6%. First time China has appeared in the country list.

Week 15 (2026-08-17), trailing-30 snapshot. Fourth straight week of decline: visitors, page views, and bounce rate all moved the wrong way again. One caveat on this pull: Vercel was reporting a partial disruption of Observability, Analytics, Firewall, Usage, and Login at the time these numbers were captured, so treat them as provisional. Still nothing from AI surfaces.

  • Visitors: 63 · Page views: 114 (trailing 30 days, down from 68 / 127 last week). Bounce rate 81%.
  • Four straight declines on all three, as visitors / views / bounce: 91 / 190 / 70% (Week 12), 69 / 140 / 71% (Week 13), 68 / 127 / 78% (Week 14), 63 / 114 / 81% (Week 15).
  • Top pages, visitors and views: / (47 / 53), /tools/ai-brand-check (7 / 8), /consulting (5 / 6), /services/web-builds (5 / 5), /insights (4 / 4), /services/qa-testing (4 / 4), /services/ai-memory-systems (3 / 3), /services/ai-receptionist (3 / 3), /services/ai-visibility (3 / 3), /services/ai-visibility-audit (3 / 3), /for/contractors (2 / 2), /for/dental (2 / 2), /for/lawyers (2 / 2), /for/professional-services (2 / 4), /for/real-estate (2 / 2), /seo-for-ai (2 / 2), /terms (2 / 2), /es/para/servicios-profesionales (1 / 2), /for/hospitality (1 / 1), this page itself (1 / 1), /insights/rio-grande-valley-concrete-contractor-site (1 / 1), its third straight week with a visit, and /privacy (1 / 1).
  • Referrers: google.com (8), WhatsApp (6), facebook.com (5), l.instagram.com (2), l.threads.com (1). Google still leads. vercel.com showed 1 visitor and is excluded here, as always, because that is us clicking through from the dashboard.
  • Referrals from AI surfaces (ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Overviews): zero, again. Fifteen weeks in. No AI-surface domain appears anywhere in the referrer list.
  • Audience skew, top five countries: US 33%, Mexico 13%, China 11%, Germany 8%, Sweden 6%.

Week 16 (2026-08-24): no snapshot taken. The weekly pull did not run that week. Vercel Analytics only serves a rolling window, so that reading is gone and cannot be reconstructed. Recording the gap rather than quietly closing it, on the same principle as everything else on this page.

Week 17 (2026-08-31), trailing-30 snapshot. The worst window on record. Lowest visitors, lowest page views, highest bounce rate, shallowest sessions. Two things changed shape at the same time: WhatsApp displaced Google as the top referrer, and mobile passed desktop for the first time in this log. Still nothing from AI surfaces.

  • Visitors: 49 · Page views: 76 (trailing 30 days, measured against 63 / 114 at Week 15 because no Week 16 reading exists). Bounce rate 88%, the highest logged. Pages per visitor 1.6, down from 1.8, also the lowest logged.
  • The full decline, as visitors / views / bounce: 91 / 190 / 70% (Week 12), 69 / 140 / 71% (Week 13), 68 / 127 / 78% (Week 14), 63 / 114 / 81% (Week 15), 49 / 76 / 88% (Week 17). Page views are now 23% of the Week 9 peak of 330.
  • Top pages, visitors and views: / (41 / 44), /consulting (3 / 3), /insights (3 / 3), /services/ai-visibility-audit (3 / 3), /tools/ai-brand-check (3 / 3), /for/hospitality (2 / 2), /services/ai-visibility (2 / 2), /services/qa-testing (2 / 2), /services/web-builds (2 / 2), /terms (2 / 2), /es/para/hospitalidad (1 / 2), /for/lawyers (1 / 1), /for/professional-services (1 / 1), /for/real-estate (1 / 1), this page itself (1 / 1), /privacy (1 / 1), /seo-for-ai (1 / 1), /services/ai-memory-systems (1 / 1), and /services/ai-receptionist (1 / 1). Nineteen pages drew a visit, down from twenty-two.
  • New and gone: /es/para/hospitalidad appears for the first time, the second Spanish page ever to draw traffic. Three pages that had held a floor for months drew nothing at all this window: /for/contractors, /for/dental, and the RGV case study post, which ends its three-week run.
  • Referrers: WhatsApp (9), facebook.com (6), google.com (5), l.instagram.com (3), l.threads.com (1). Google led this list for four straight windows and has dropped to third. WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram and Threads are all Meta properties, so 19 of the 24 attributed referrals arrived from Meta and Google is the only non-Meta source left. vercel.com showed 1 visitor and is excluded here, as always, because that is us clicking through from the dashboard.
  • Referrals from AI surfaces (ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Overviews): zero, again. Seventeen weeks in. Not one visit from an AI answer engine since this log opened. The line this experiment exists to move has never moved.
  • Audience skew, full list: US 19 visitors (39%), Mexico 9 (18%), United Kingdom 6 (12%), China 5 (10%), Sweden 3 (6%), Brazil 2, Germany 2, Spain 1, India 1, Morocco 1. The UK enters the list for the first time and lands third. Sweden drew 3 visitors but 13 page views, by far the deepest sessions in the window.
  • Devices: Mobile 55%, Desktop 45%. First window where mobile leads; Week 12 read Desktop 73% and Mobile 27%. Operating systems: iOS 29%, Android 27%, Windows 20%, Mac 18%, Linux 6%.

Week 18 (2026-09-07), trailing-30 snapshot. First break in the run of declines: page views rose and bounce rate fell for the first time since Week 12, even though visitors dipped again. Google reclaimed the top referrer spot from WhatsApp, and desktop closed most of the gap with mobile. Still nothing from AI surfaces.

  • Visitors: 45 · Page views: 81 (trailing 30 days; 49 / 76 last week). Bounce rate 82%, down from 88%. Pages per visitor 1.8, up from 1.6.
  • The recent run, as visitors / views / bounce: 91 / 190 / 70% (Week 12), 69 / 140 / 71% (Week 13), 68 / 127 / 78% (Week 14), 63 / 114 / 81% (Week 15), 49 / 76 / 88% (Week 17), 45 / 81 / 82% (Week 18). Page views are now 25% of the Week 9 peak of 330, up from 23% last week.
  • Top pages, visitors and views: / (35 / 37), /consulting (5 / 5), /insights (5 / 5), /services/ai-visibility (3 / 3), /services/qa-testing (3 / 3), /services/web-builds (3 / 3), /tools/ai-brand-check (3 / 3), /for/hospitality (2 / 2), this page itself (2 / 3), /privacy (2 / 2), /seo-for-ai (2 / 2), /services/ai-memory-systems (2 / 2), /services/ai-receptionist (2 / 2), /services/ai-visibility-audit (2 / 2), /terms (2 / 2), /es/para/hospitalidad (1 / 2), /for/lawyers (1 / 1), /for/professional-services (1 / 1), /for/real-estate (1 / 1). Nineteen pages drew a visit, same as last week. /for/contractors and /for/dental stayed at zero for a second straight window.
  • Referrers: google.com (7), WhatsApp (6), facebook.com (5), l.instagram.com (2), l.threads.com (1). Google is back on top after WhatsApp led last week.
  • Referrals from AI surfaces (ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Overviews): zero, again. Eighteen weeks in. Not one visit from an AI answer engine since this log opened.
  • Audience skew, full list: US 18 visitors (40%), Mexico 8 (18%), China 5 (11%), United Kingdom 5 (11%), Sweden 3 (7%), Brazil 2 (4%), Canada 1, Germany 1, Spain 1, India 1.
  • Devices: Mobile 51%, Desktop 49%, nearly even, down from Mobile 55% / Desktop 45% at Week 17. Operating systems: Android 29%, Mac 24%, iOS 22%, Windows 16%, Linux 9%.

No metric removed once published. AI-referral line remains zero, the number this whole experiment is built to move.

Want this run on your brand?

We are taking on a small number of brands as the first paid case studies for the same methodology. Contact Raptor AI about an AI visibility audit and tell us what you sell. If you want to see how AI describes your brand right now, run our free check first.