Reference desk
Sources and research boundaries
Primary research, platform documentation, and the evidence boundaries behind this educational hub.
Source strength depends on what a document establishes. A research experiment supports a finding within its tested conditions; a platform document describes that platform; a company proposal states company-reported scope. They are not interchangeable forms of evidence.
What the GEO research establishes
The GEO authors provide a benchmark and experiments studying source visibility in generated answers. Their project discusses domain-dependent effects. Those results do not establish a universal method, a Freeways outcome, or a guaranteed recommendation by current products.
What the llms.txt proposal establishes
The proposal describes a concise navigation file and clean Markdown page alternatives for agents. It is a proposed convention, not a platform-wide promise of crawling, ranking, citation, or brand mention.
What this hub contributes
This hub offers proposed business-review and measurement workflows, worked hypothetical examples, and a blank observation template. These are labeled editorial methods until supported by an actual, reviewed study. No client result is inferred from a method description.
How to evaluate a new claim
Identify the exact statement, inspect the primary source, record the date and conditions, and check whether the wording generalizes beyond the evidence. If a source is unavailable or a result cannot be reproduced, preserve that limit rather than filling it with a plausible claim.
Frequently asked questions
Are research gains a forecast for this site?
No. Benchmarks and production websites have different conditions, and source visibility is different from branded recommendations.
Does a Markdown endpoint guarantee agent use?
No. It provides an alternative representation for clients that choose to read it.
Why distinguish source types?
To prevent company descriptions, editorial proposals, experiments, and platform rules from being presented as the same kind of proof.
Primary references
- GEO research repository — Aggarwal and collaborators: research material inspected for scope and limitations; experimental code was not run.
- llms.txt proposal — Jeremy Howard: source text inspected; describes an optional agent navigation convention.
Inspected platform documentation
These primary sources were retrieved and inspected on October 11, 2026. Google describes its own Search features; OpenAI describes its own access agents. Neither source validates our proposed worksheets or predicts citations for this site.