Scope of Work: 2027 Baseline Diagnostic (Stages 1–4 Audit)

This SOW covers a fixed-fee, three-week diagnostic engagement across all four implementation stages: access & rendering, entity hygiene, extractability, and earned-media presence. It identifies and ranks what is broken and produces a board-ready memo. It does not include implementing the fixes it identifies; that is the scope of the Program Retainer.

Governing Agreement: Where the Client has executed a Master Service Agreement ("MSA") with the Consultant, this SOW is issued under and subject to that Agreement, and the MSA's terms (including its limitation of liability, intellectual property, confidentiality, and indemnification provisions) govern this engagement. Where no separate MSA has been executed, this SOW and the Consultant's published Terms of Service together constitute the complete agreement between the parties for this engagement.

1. Service Description

The Consultant will audit the Client's AI-search presence across four stages and deliver a single board-ready memo: the problem stated plainly, the ranked findings behind it, the business risk of leaving it unfixed, a priced and scoped plan to fix it, and a measurement plan with a baseline, a target, and a kill criterion. This is an audit and a plan, not an implementation engagement.

Stage 1 — Access & Rendering: Confirm whether AI crawlers can actually reach and read the Client's site.

Stage 2 — Entity Hygiene: Assess whether the Client's brand resolves as one clean, disambiguated entity across the platforms models draw on.

Stage 3 — Extractability: Assess whether the Client's priority pages can be quoted directly by a model, or require restructuring.

Stage 4 — Earned-Media Presence: Assess the Client's current review, press, and community presence against named competitors on the platforms AI engines actually cite.

2. What This Includes

Diagnostic and assessment work only, organized by stage. Every item below results in a finding and a ranked recommendation in the final memo. None of them are executed as part of this engagement.

Stage 1 — Access & Rendering

• Verify robots.txt exists, loads correctly, and isn't silently blocking any major AI crawler (GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, Google's AI training crawler, and others)
• Check server response headers, CDN/WAF bot-management rules, and any challenge pages for hidden blocks robots.txt alone wouldn't reveal
• Confirm whether priority pages' core content is present in raw page source or only appears after JavaScript executes
• Review indexation status in Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools, since Bing's index feeds ChatGPT search and Copilot
• Check server logs to confirm which AI crawlers are actually visiting, versus theoretically allowed to
• Test the Client's real server behavior by directly requesting priority pages as GPTBot and comparing the result to a normal visitor's experience

Stage 2 — Entity Hygiene

• Audit brand name, description, and key facts for consistency across the Client's own site, Wikidata, LinkedIn, Crunchbase, G2, and Capterra
• Identify any duplicate, unclaimed, or incorrect entity listings across those platforms
• Check for category mismatches on review platforms that would weaken a model's confidence in attributing reviews to the right space
• Ask ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude directly what they currently believe the Client's company is, and record what each gets right or wrong

Stage 3 — Extractability

• Identify the Client's highest-value pages, prioritized by commercial and informational value
• Test real extractability by asking ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude the Client's own target questions, checking whether they quote the Client accurately, quote a competitor instead, or get it wrong
• Flag which priority pages lack a direct answer, self-contained sections, or original data, and rank them by expected impact
• Identify outdated or unsourced claims on priority pages that could be quoted as current or authoritative when they shouldn't be

Stage 4 — Earned-Media Presence

• Map the review platforms, publications, and communities relevant to the Client's category
• Baseline the Client's current review count, press mentions, and Reddit/YouTube presence against named competitors
• Identify the specific "best of" or comparison articles in the Client's category the Client is absent from
• Rank the highest-leverage earned-media gaps by expected effort and expected impact

3. Deliverables & Timeline

Timeline: One-time engagement, delivered in approximately 3 weeks.

Deliverables: A single board-ready memo covering the problem statement, ranked findings across all four stages, the business risk of inaction, a priced and scoped plan, and a measurement plan with a baseline, target, and kill criterion. Measurement setup (a "how did you hear about us" field and a discovery-call logging habit) is configured as part of this engagement.

4. Credits and Prerequisites

If the Client completed an AI Shortlist Scan within 30 days prior to this engagement, that fee is credited in full toward this Diagnostic's fee. If the Client proceeds to a Program Retainer within 30 days of this Diagnostic's delivery, 50% of this Diagnostic's fee is credited toward the Retainer's first month.

5. Limitations and Disclaimers

The Consultant makes no guarantee regarding future AI-model rankings or recommendations. No party controls what a given model returns. The Consultant guarantees the deliverable described above: a specific, defensible plan with a baseline, mechanism, target, and kill criterion. If this Diagnostic does not produce that document, the Consultant will continue work at no additional charge until it does. This engagement is otherwise non-refundable once work has begun.

6. Compensation and Routing

Project Fee: $4,500 USD flat fee, due in full at the time of booking. Work begins only upon receipt of payment.

Payment Routing: International clients pay via PayPal; clients based in India can pay via UPI or bank transfer. Payment details will be provided on the invoice.