Free check
Guide · for owners and managing directors in machinery and plant engineering

Eleven questions to ask before you hire anyone for AI visibility.

Written by a provider — with our own answers in the same place, including where they are uncomfortable.

Since spring 2026 there have been a dozen or so providers in Germany offering this. From the outside the offers look very alike: a free quick check, an audit somewhere between €2,500 and €3,500, then a monthly fee. The differences sit underneath, and the brochures do not show them.

These eleven questions bring them out. Each one says what a solid answer sounds like and how to recognise an evasive one. Print the list and take it into three conversations. If you then hire someone else, the guide still did its job.

  1. How many languages and markets do you measure — and is that included in the price?

    One language and one market is the market standard. The common measurement tools only offer more languages in higher tiers. If sixty percent of your revenue is abroad, a single-language audit measures the wrong half of your business.

    Good answer
    a number, and which markets specifically.
    Warning sign
    “international, of course”, with no languages named.

  2. Do you check whether what is said about us is true — or only whether we appear?

    Measuring presence is easy: you count mentions. Checking correctness means holding every individual claim against your documentation — performance data, approvals, application areas, company name. For a machinery builder the second is the more expensive problem, because a wrong performance figure sitting next to your data sheet makes you look unreliable, not the model.

    Good answer
    an example of an incorrect claim they found and how it was corrected.
    Warning sign
    “hallucinations can't be influenced.” The answer changes when the sources change.

  3. What do you measure success against?

    If the answer is an index, ask who calculates it. A visibility score the provider defines, collects and evaluates is not a metric; it is a report card someone writes about themselves. The only number that counts for you is an enquiry from someone who was not in your system before.

    Good answer
    a figure from your CRM, plus an open statement that the attribution is imperfect.
    Warning sign
    an index with no definition, and any success guarantee on mentions.

  4. Will you show me the raw data — the questions and the complete answers?

    You should receive every question asked and every answer received verbatim, not just an evaluation. Without the raw data you cannot check whether the questions were asked the way your buyers would ask them — and everything depends on that.

    Good answer
    an appendix with all prompts and answers, dated.
    Warning sign
    a deck of bar charts with no appendix.

  5. How do you handle variance?

    The same question asked twice does not give the same answer. A provider quoting a single value with no range either measured once or is hiding the uncertainty from you. Both are a problem.

    Good answer
    repeated runs, a value with a range, a stated measurement date.
    Warning sign
    a round percentage with no date.

  6. Who owns the sources you propose to optimise into?

    Some providers in this field are trade publishers or belong to one. They own precisely the media the models cite from, and they sell you placement in them. That is not automatically bad — the reach is real. But you should know that the recommendation to appear there comes from someone who owns there.

    Good answer
    the interest is disclosed unprompted.
    Warning sign
    an action list consisting mostly of one publishing house's titles.

  7. What exactly does the consent box under your free check cover?

    07

    TODO — question 7 is held. It states what § 7 UWG requires and describes a practice in the field; Copy v3 §8 requires counsel to read this one question before the page goes live. A guide that cites law has to be right about it, or it damages exactly the trust it was written to earn.

  8. What is the minimum term, and what renews automatically?

    Twelve months with silent renewal and a setup fee is common in this field. Short terms are not automatically better — working on sources takes months, and anyone offering you four weeks cannot show you anything in four weeks. The right question is not “how short” but “why this length specifically”.

    Good answer
    the term justified from the work itself, plus monthly cancellation afterwards.
    Warning sign
    automatic renewal for another twelve months.

  9. Who does the work, and who sits in the results conversation?

    At these amounts the question is not theoretical. Ask who writes the questions, who reads the answers and who writes the report — and whether the same person is sitting across from you.

    Good answer
    a name.
    Warning sign
    “our team”.

  10. What do you guarantee?

    The only correct answer is: nothing where mentions are concerned. These systems are not deterministic and nobody controls them. What can be guaranteed is work, deadlines, documentation and traceability — not the output of a model.

    Good answer
    a clear refusal to guarantee mentions, followed by what is actually promised.
    Warning sign
    “placement guaranteed”, “No. 1 in ChatGPT”.

  11. When would you advise me against this?

    A provider with no answer here has either never advised anyone against it or is not telling you. There are plenty of cases where this is not worth it: if you have three customers and want no new ones, if your English website is being rebuilt in two months anyway, if nobody internally has time to approve content.

    Good answer
    two specific cases.
    Warning sign
    “this is worth it for everyone”.

Our own answers

For completeness, in the same order, briefly: two languages, German and English, included in the price; further markets on request. Yes, we check correctness — four to six claims in the free check, all of them in the audit. We let ourselves be measured on enquiries and say openly that the attribution is imperfect. All prompts and answers are attached to the report verbatim. Repeated measurement, a grade with a range, a date on every number. We own not a single source we optimise into. One checkbox, one purpose. Three months for the sprint, six for ongoing work, monthly thereafter, no silent renewal. Girdharee Saran does the work and sits in the conversation. We guarantee no mentions. And the last person we advised against this was a supplier with two customers who did not want new ones.

If you want to see what this is about first.

Written by a provider — with our own answers in the same place, including where they are uncomfortable.

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