Research protocol

Local AI Visibility Study Protocol.

This is the fixed method for a future study on how local businesses appear in AI answers. No data has been collected for this page yet.

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Authority system

Access, proof, expertise, conversion, measurement.

Every new page in this expansion is built to do at least one real job: clarify the entity, prove the work, answer a buyer question, or create a measurable next action.

Purpose

What this study will test.

The study will test how often local businesses are mentioned or cited when users ask AI systems category and city questions such as who to hire, what company to compare, and which provider is trusted nearby.

It will separate a named mention from a linked citation, because those are different outcomes. A brand can be named without being cited, cited without being recommended, or absent from both.

The method follows the same broad direction as Google's current AI guidance: focus on crawlable, useful, non-commodity content and honest measurement rather than special AI markup or inauthentic mentions.

Google's AI optimization guide is the external baseline for that position.

Study design

The measurement plan.

VerticalsLocal services, plaintiff law, and direct-to-consumer agriculture will be tested separately.

MarketsEach market will use city-modified buyer questions and non-city category questions.

PromptsPrompts will be grouped by hire, compare, trust, cost, emergency, and near-me intent.

EnginesThe panel will track mentions and citations separately where tooling allows it.

ExclusionsSponsored placements, unverifiable answers, and hallucinated business data will be flagged instead of counted as wins.

OutputThe final report will publish the method, counts, limitations, and example answer captures.

Has the local AI visibility study collected data yet?

No. This is the protocol page. It is published first so the method is visible before data collection begins.

Why publish the protocol before results?

It prevents the methodology from being rewritten after seeing the data and makes the eventual study more credible.

What will the study measure?

It will measure whether local businesses appear as mentions or citations in AI answers for buyer-intent prompts across selected verticals and cities.