Your first AI search review

Gather your business facts

Keep private customer details out of any assistant and out of any shared worksheet.

List the facts a customer relies on before they get in touch. That usually means your name, address, phone number, opening hours, service area, prices and how booking works. Confirm the current version with the responsible person.

Note where each fact is published, including any directory listing you manage. If two places disagree, settle the right answer before you open an assistant.

Keep this list of facts as a single sheet you can reuse. It saves rechecking every source at each review.

Read the whole answer

Keep the question, the answer, the assistant, the date and your location together. Mark mentions and source links separately.

If the answer doesn't name your business, write that down. Check your website before you decide anything is wrong with it.

Read past the sentence that names you. The other businesses in the answer, and what it says about them, show what the customer is weighing you against.

Note any statement you can't verify either way. Marking it as needing a check keeps a guess out of the record.

Pick a fix you can check

Fix a wrong opening time before a vague description. Name the exact page and fact, then choose a task whose publishing route is clear.

Write the change in ordinary words. The person responsible for that fact checks it, then the website owner publishes it.

Small fixes come first because you can confirm them. A rewrite of a whole page is harder to review and harder to compare later.

Write the proposed wording next to the current wording. A reviewer can then see exactly what would change.

A customer question the answer doesn't address is a gap. A wrong fact is an error. They lead to different tasks.

Use three labels, confirmed, incorrect and needs checking.

Give each finding its own line, with the statement, your label and the evidence. Someone else should reach the same label from the same evidence.

Mark the facts the answer gets right as well as the errors. A confirmed fact is evidence too.

If a correct fact sits next to a link to your page, note that page. It shows which of your pages carries the detail customers read.

Correct facts also give you a starting point. If one turns wrong later, you'll know when it changed and what the earlier answer said.

Check the result

After it's live, read the changed page on a phone and on a computer. Save the old and new wording with the date.

Ask the same question again later, keep the method the same and save the new answer. A difference does not establish that your edit caused it.

Leave enough time before you ask again. A page that has only just changed may not have been read again yet.

Follow the changed page's links and check nearby booking forms. Make sure related pages and repeated prices still agree.

Save the publication date beside your first record.

If the fact is repeated elsewhere, such as your footer or a price list, update every copy at the same time.

Prepare a review sheet before you open an assistant

Decide what you will record before opening an assistant. A consistent sheet makes a second review easier to compare with the first.

Choose one question from a real enquiry and strip out names and contact details. Keep it narrow enough that you can check the answer.

Make columns for the full answer, the linked sources, the facts you've confirmed and the questions still open. Filling these in as you go stops you deciding in advance what you expect to find.

Keep the sheet in one place that everyone involved can open. A copy on one person's laptop is easily lost.

Set up the session before you ask

Decide where you'll ask from and write it down. Google says it uses your current location to give more helpful results, even when a search names no place.

For a local service, put the town in the prompt itself. Then the place is part of the question rather than a hidden setting.

Start a new conversation for each question. An earlier question in the same chat can shape the next answer, and you won't see how.

Note whether you were signed in, and which device and app you used. Use the same set-up when you repeat the review.

Use an ordinary browser or the assistant's own app, as a customer would. A tool that changes how pages load can change what you see.

• Google Search Help, Understand and manage your location when you search

Save an answer with its context

Keep the complete reply, question, date and links so someone else can assess the finding. If the answer gives no sources, record that.

If a try fails and gives you no answer, mark it unavailable and give the reason. It isn't an answer that left you out.

If the assistant shows that it searched the web, or lists the searches it ran, save that too. It tells a later reader how the answer was built.

Ask the same question more than once

Google's help page for AI Overviews says AI responses may include mistakes. It suggests asking several versions of a question and checking important information in more than one place.

For a review, keep your wording fixed and ask it again in a fresh session. Save both answers, even if they match.

If the two answers differ, record both. Variation between runs is normal, and it shows that one answer was only a sample.

Note the time of each run as well as the date. Two answers an hour apart can still differ.

Don't keep asking until you see the answer you hoped for. Decide in advance how many times you'll ask, then keep every result.

• Google Search Help, AI Overviews in Google Search

Check the facts customers act on

Some wrong facts send a customer to the wrong place at the wrong time. Start with your address, phone number, opening hours, service area and prices.

Then check what is included, how to book and any qualification or membership the answer mentions. A wrong claim about a qualification can mislead as much as a wrong price.

Prices need extra care. Note whether a price is a starting price, a fixed price or an estimate, because an answer can make a starting price sound firm.

Compare each fact with your Business Profile as well as your website. Google lists keeping Business Profile information up to date among its basics for AI features in Search.

Google's Business Profile help says complete information helps customers know what you do, where you are and when to visit. Fix any gap there through the profile itself.

Keep a dated copy of the record you checked against. If your facts change later, the old answer can still be judged against what was true then.

• Google guidance on AI features
• Google Business Profile guidance

When the answer leaves you out

An omission is one observation, not proof that the business cannot appear. Record the answer and inspect the alternatives without inventing a reason.

Check that your own site clearly offers what the question asks about. If the service or the place is missing from your pages, that is a gap you can close.

Open the linked sources and see whether you are listed there. A directory or comparison page that leaves you out is a separate task with its own owner.

Don't decide why you were left out from one answer. Record what you saw and ask the same question at your next review.

Report a wrong answer as well as fixing the page

Google's help page describes thumbs up and thumbs down icons at the bottom of each AI Overview. Thumbs down leads to Report a problem, where you choose a category and add details.

It also says the feedback includes your most recent search and its results. So keep private details out of the search before you send it.

Write down the date, the answer and what you reported. A report is a request, and the answer may stay the same.

If another assistant offers a feedback route, use it and keep the same record. Then carry on with the fix to your own page, which you can check.

• Google Search Help, AI Overviews in Google Search

Plan the next review before you finish

Set a date for the next review now. Keep the same question, the same set-up and the same record sheet.

Put the date in a calendar with the name of whoever will run it. A review with no owner tends not to happen.

Google says crawling can take from a few days to a few weeks after you change a page. Ask again too soon and you may only see the old page at work.

If you manage the site in Search Console, the URL Inspection tool shows Google's indexed version of a page. It can also request a crawl of a changed address.

Google adds that requesting a crawl doesn't mean the page will be included, and repeated requests don't speed it up. One request is enough.

These tools cover Google only. For other assistants, the repeat review itself is your evidence.

• Google Search Central, Ask Google to recrawl your URLs
• Search Console Help, URL Inspection tool

Sources and method

A Carqo review method. Provider statements link to the relevant documentation.

• Google guidance on helpful content Link checked 4 November 2026
• Google Search Help, Understand and manage your location when you search Link checked 29 October 2026
• Google Search Help, AI Overviews in Google Search Link checked 4 November 2026
• Google guidance on AI features Link checked 4 November 2026
• Google Business Profile guidance Link checked 13 October 2026
• Google Search Central, Ask Google to recrawl your URLs Link checked 29 October 2026
• Search Console Help, URL Inspection tool Link checked 4 November 2026

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