This is a public self-case, not a named-client marketing claim. MentionBench Consulting LLC is running the same AEO/GEO Engagement standard on mentionbench.com that we sell to North American IT B2B brands: people + acceptance criteria + accountability across Diagnosis / On-site improvement / Bounded off-site (Assess → Improve → Review are optional 1:1 aliases only—not three sellable tiers). We froze a public baseline on 26 July 2026. Shortlist lift on the locked English buying-prompt panel (Panel v1 · N=100 · Frozen 2026-07-26) remains Pending until a real retest ships as Prompt set: N. Before: X/N. After: Y/N. Full prompt list: locked English buying-prompt panel. We do not invent mention or visibility percentages. Method boundaries: FAQ · Compare · Glossary.
The visibility problem (26 July 2026)
On day zero, mentionbench.com was a new public site with weak entity and boundary clarity for buyers asking AI which GEO/AEO agency to hire. A third-party AI visibility snapshot the same day showed Mentions still at 0, and the overview state read as not present on AI platforms yet—near-zero visibility, not a vanity baseline we dress up as traction.
We published that baseline in the open so buyers can check the clock, not just our claim. Watch the day-zero diary: Baseline: AI Visibility Near Zero (26 July).
What we changed — timeline
Work stayed inside one Engagement. The on-site SEO and on-site AEO steps below are On-site improvement inside that Engagement—not separate sellable “SEO” or “Sprint” products. We are not selling Sprint / Monitor / Defend as public tiers.
28 July — twelve on-site SEO themes
Two days after baseline, metrics were still all zeros (expected for a new site). We started a fixed list of twelve on-site SEO themes—crawlability, robots/sitemap/canonical, title/meta/H1, heading hierarchy, internal links, visible FAQ, case structure, image alt, Core Web Vitals, JSON-LD, Open Graph, mobile—so browsers and crawlers can fetch and understand the site before we ask AI systems to recommend it.
Diary: Day 2 Still All Zeros — Starting On-Site SEO (28 July).
30 July — SEO live, still no meaningful lift → on-site AEO next
By 30 July, those SEO settings were on the live site, and the homepage framing moved off Sprint CTAs toward a consult / Engagement-style hero. Dated snapshots still showed Mentions at 0 and no meaningful shortlist lift. Next: on-site AEO themes (AI crawler reachability, answer-first blocks, entity clarity, FAQ + schema, SSR/key copy without JS, freshness, llms.txt / AI instructions, and related items)—still under On-site improvement, then the same locked-prompt panel for retest.
Diary: Still No Traffic After SEO — Adding On-Site AEO (30 July).
Cross-check the method language on Diagnosis, FAQ, Compare, Glossary, and Resources.
Public diary (YouTube)
Channel: YouTube @MentionBench — B2B GEO/AEO agency. Three dated videos (text links; no embedded player):
- 26 July — Baseline: AI Visibility Near Zero — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfG7BXyMUPc
- 28 July — Day 2 Still All Zeros — Starting On-Site SEO — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLeQ58qtfZc
- 30 July — Still No Traffic After SEO — Adding On-Site AEO — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPKJ0PdMSEQ
What the dated snapshots show
Figures below come from dated third-party AI visibility snapshots (product UI not shown on this page). Mentions remained 0 across all three dates. We do not treat secondary summary percentages as lift.
| Date | Mentions | Overview status | Authority | Source pages (prompt landscape) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 26 Jul 2026 | 0 | Not present on AI platforms yet | 0 | ~1219 |
| 28 Jul 2026 | 0 | Not present on AI platforms yet | 2 | ~1267 |
| 30 Jul 2026 | 0 | Not present on AI platforms yet | 2 | ~1294 |
Homepage before / after (public site framing):
Verifiable result
Shipped (checkable now):
- Public baseline frozen 26 July 2026 (YouTube + dated snapshot narrative above)
- On-site SEO theme work started 28 July; on-site AEO next called on 30 July
- Homepage public framing moved off Sprint CTAs by 30 July
- Authority 0 → 2 and source-page counts moved on the dated snapshots—while Mentions stayed 0 and shortlist lift stayed not meaningful
Pending (will publish only when retested):
Prompt set: N. Before: X/N. After: Y/N. — mention rate and citation rate on the same locked English buying-prompt panel. Until that ships, AI shortlist lift = Pending. No invented rankings, no guaranteed SOV, no “every answer” promise.
Live evidence chain: this page · locked panel v1 · Case Studies · anonymized B2B PR Assess case · FAQ · Compare.
Why this framing
Buyers evaluating a hire need a clock and a panel they can re-check—not a composite score wall. We keep measurement language on locked prompts and dated snapshots. We do not expose an internal tool stack on-site; the YouTube diary supplies third-party timestamps anyone can open. Honesty about still near zero is part of the proof style.
What other businesses can learn
- Freeze a baseline before you celebrate motion. Day-zero near-zero is usable proof if the date and panel are public.
- Make the site crawlable and structured before you expect AI shortlist lift. SEO readability first, then on-site AEO—inside one Engagement, not as a second product line.
- Publish zeros when they are real. “Still all zeros” two days later was expected; hiding it would break the diary.
- Retest on the same locked panel. Different prompts or different tools are not a before/after.
- Separate shipped work from Pending lift. Authority or source-page movement is not the same as mention/citation rate on buyer prompts.
Next step
Email [email protected] for a short consult on one AEO/GEO Engagement. Or continue on Case Studies, FAQ, Compare, and the public diary on YouTube @MentionBench.