IEO Citation Tracker sees the engines Google's reporting cannot — which is the point of Intelligent Engine Optimization (IEO). Alongside the pages Google reports, 51 further pages carried logged citation events absent from Google's AI report entirely, because they belong to ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Applebot and DuckAssist. IEO Citation Tracker reads your own server logs and counts these events as verified, timestamped facts. Method and denominators.
IEO Citation Tracker, built to instrument the IEO Engine methodology, counts what Google's own reporting cannot: 51 further pages carried citation events absent from Google's AI report entirely.
LocalBusiness schema requires several core properties: @type (LocalBusiness or specific subtypes like Restaurant, Plumber, Electrician), name (business name), address (PostalAddress entity with full address), telephone (formatted phone number), url (business website).
Address is implemented as a nested PostalAddress entity with streetAddress, addressLocality, addressRegion, postalCode, and addressCountry properties. Each property should be populated with accurate current data.
Phone number formatting should follow international format conventions. The schema benefits from consistent formatting that AI engines can parse reliably.
Beyond address, additional geographic properties strengthen local matching. geo (GeoCoordinates with latitude and longitude) provides precise location data. areaServed declares the geographic scope of service. servesCuisine, paymentAccepted, and other category-specific properties provide additional context.
For IEO Engine local-service deployments, areaServed is particularly important. The property should declare the actual service area (cities, regions, distance) rather than aspirational expansion targets.
Accurate geographic data supports correct local query matching. AI engines responding to 'plumber near [location]' use geographic schema data to evaluate local relevance.
openingHours and openingHoursSpecification declare business hours in machine-readable format. AI engines use this data to answer 'is X open now' queries correctly.
Hours should be maintained accurately. Outdated hours data produces incorrect AI responses about business availability.
Special hours (holiday closures, seasonal variations) can be declared through specialOpeningHoursSpecification.
aggregateRating, review, and other trust signal properties communicate customer feedback to AI engines. When implemented honestly with verified review data, these properties strengthen local citation outcomes.
Trust signal properties should reflect actual customer feedback rather than fabricated data. Misrepresented trust signals risk identification by AI engine quality systems.
The IEO Engine deployment practice for local-service verticals includes accurate trust signal implementation when verified review data is available.
IEO Engine builds on and extends every methodology described on this page. Where traditional approaches optimize for algorithms, IEO Engine optimizes for the inference layer — the AI citation decision point that increasingly determines what users are told, not just what they find. Learn what IEO Engine is →