# [AI SEO agency: what they do, and what you can do yourself](https://rebilder.com/solutions/ai-seo-agency)

> What an AI SEO agency actually delivers, which part of it is a one-afternoon technical change you can ship free, and the questions to ask before you sign.

- **Updated:** 2026-08-17

We are not an agency. We make the software the technical half of this work runs on, and that half is free, so this page is about telling the two halves apart before you buy either.



## What you get

- A plain breakdown of what these engagements include
- The one change that moves the most, which you can ship yourself
- Six questions that separate a good engagement from a bad one
- A free scan, so you walk into the call knowing your own numbers

## These engagements contain two very different jobs

Almost every proposal in this category bundles a technical job with an editorial one. They have different shapes: the technical half is a small, one-time change with an immediate and measurable effect, and the editorial half is an ongoing programme whose effect is real but slow and hard to attribute.

|  | The technical half | The editorial half |
| --- | --- | --- |
| What it is | Serving, bot rules, response size, fact position | Content that answers real questions |
| How long | An afternoon, once | Continuous |
| Effect | Immediate and measurable | Gradual and hard to attribute |
| Can you do it in-house | Usually yes, it is middleware | Only if you have the writers |
| What it should cost | Close to nothing | Whatever good writing costs |

The reason to separate them before a call is that they are often priced as one thing. If a retainer is largely the technical half, you are paying monthly for a change that happened once.

## The half you can ship this afternoon

Content negotiation is the single highest-impact change for most sites, and it is middleware rather than strategy. A request that asks for markdown gets markdown built from values you already store; browsers and search crawlers are untouched.

middleware.ts

```ts
import { gateway } from '@rebilder/gateway'

export default gateway({
  source: { kind: 'document', resolve: myPages },
})
```

1. **Scan a page of each template** and write the numbers down. This is your baseline and your negotiating position.
2. **Read your bot rules as a decision.** Most blocks on assistants were inherited from an old anti-scraping policy, not chosen.
3. **Answer `Accept: text/markdown`.** The free tier covers 1,000 agent visits a month and the SDK is unmetered and self-hostable.
4. **Then decide what is left.** Whatever remains is genuinely editorial, and that is a real thing to hire for.

## Six questions to ask before you sign

- **What exactly are you promising?** If the answer includes guaranteed mentions or citations in assistants, that is not deliverable by anyone at any price.
- **What is the baseline, and who takes it?** An engagement with no before-measurement cannot demonstrate an after.
- **Which of the two halves is most of this retainer?** Ask for the split in hours, not in deliverable names.
- **What happens to the technical work if we leave?** Middleware you own keeps working. A hosted rewrite layer does not.
- **How will we see agent traffic?** Analytics cannot record it, so if the reporting comes from a page-view tool it is measuring the wrong thing.
- **Will any of this change what Google receives?** The correct answer is no, and it should be demonstrable rather than asserted.

> **The reporting trap** Agent fetches run no JavaScript and fire no beacon, so they are structurally invisible to a page-view script. An engagement reported from one will show a flat line whatever happened, which is bad for you and, eventually, bad for the agency too.

## What this does not do

- We are not an agency and do not offer services. There is no engagement to buy here, and nothing on this page is a referral to anyone who does.
- It cannot make an assistant mention you. Assistants are not deterministic and no vendor controls their output, so a guaranteed citation is not a thing anyone can sell.
- We do not rank, review or recommend agencies. Nothing about a named third party is published without that domain owner’s verified opt-in.
- The software does not write content. It prints values you already store, and it never generates a substantive claim.

## What does an AI SEO agency do?

Typically two jobs bundled together: a technical one covering how your pages are served to AI agents, and an editorial one covering content that answers the questions people ask. The technical half is small and one-time; the editorial half is ongoing.

## Do I need an AI SEO agency?

Not to find out whether you have a problem, and not for the technical half, which is middleware most teams can ship in an afternoon. Hire for the editorial half when the writing outgrows your team.

## How much should this cost?

The technical work should cost close to nothing, because the tooling is free and the change is one-time. Content work costs what good writing costs. Be wary of a retainer whose hours are mostly the first category.

## Can an agency guarantee we appear in ChatGPT?

No. Assistants are not deterministic and nobody controls their output, so a guaranteed mention cannot be delivered at any price. A guarantee like that is the clearest signal to keep looking.

## Are you an agency?

No. We build the gateway and the readability spec that the technical half of this work runs on. The scan is free, the SDK is free and self-hostable, and there is no engagement to buy from us.

## Related

- [AI SEO services](https://rebilder.com/solutions/ai-seo-services)
- [AI SEO](https://rebilder.com/solutions/ai-seo)
- [Generative engine optimization agency](https://rebilder.com/solutions/generative-engine-optimization-agency)
- [AI search optimization: the definitive guide](https://rebilder.com/learn/ai-search-optimization)
- [Scan any URL free](https://rebilder.com/scan)