AI SEO Agency

AI SEO Agency for Google, AI Answers & Maps

Visibility isn't manufactured. It's cultivated.

Human-led search strategy across AI, organic, local and paid.

People still search Google. Now they also ask ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, or Claude, then compare answers, check Maps, follow citations, search again and make decisions without following the neat funnel marketers drew for them.

DankRank is an AI SEO agency built around that reality.

We work across AI search, organic, local and paid search using experienced human judgment, live search data, purpose-built AI workflows and ongoing testing.

The goal is simple enough:

Be found. Be understood. Be recommended.

GET YOUR FREE VISIBILITY BASELINESEE HOW WE BUILT DANKRANK

Free. Includes 2 significant competitors. Founder-reviewed. Delivered within 2 business days. No call required.

Where customers searchSignal simulation
Citation activity

02Discovery

Search Got Bigger Than the Search Results Page

One search system

  • Google
  • ChatGPT
  • Citations
  • Maps
  • Repeat search
  • Recommendations

SEO didn't suddenly stop mattering because people started asking AI systems questions.

What changed is where the answer can show up and how much happens before somebody visits your site.

A buyer might start in Google or Bing, ask ChatGPT, Gemini, or another AI assistant for a shortlist, open a few cited sources, check a company in Maps and search the brand again before making contact.

Those systems overlap more than most reporting structures suggest.

The pages you publish, the entities connected to your brand, the authority behind the information, your local signals, your paid presence and the way other sources describe you can all affect what gets surfaced.

That's why we don't treat AI visibility as a separate trick sitting on top of SEO.

Search is one system now. We work on it that way.

See the full search model

03What we work on

What We Work On

Core Search Services

Our primary work across industries: AI search, organic search, local search, paid search and fractional search leadership.

01AI Search
A question fanning out to six candidate sources, two of which are selected and cited in the answer.

AI Search + AI Visibility

This is where we work on how a brand shows up across AI search and how those systems understand it.

That can include ChatGPT, Google's AI search experiences, Gemini, Perplexity and whatever comes next.

The work covers GEO, AEO, citations, brand mentions, recommendations, clear entity information and the search evidence those systems can actually find and use.

One prompt or one citation is not enough to tell us whether anything changed.

We look at what the systems are showing, which sources keep appearing, where competitors are doing better and where your brand is missing or unclear.

Explore AI Search

02Organic
A crawl path threading three nested levels of site architecture, beside authority compounding into a rising stack.

Organic Search

Organic search is still doing a lot of the heavy lifting underneath all of this.

Information architecture, crawlability, internal linking, useful content, clear entities and original evidence still do a lot of the work underneath AI search.

AI search didn't make those fundamentals obsolete. It gave them more places to matter.

Our organic work is built for traditional search and the discovery now happening through AI systems too.

Explore Organic Search

03Local
A place at the centre of a proximity field, with nearer locations linked more strongly than distant ones.

Local Search

Local search is different because geography changes the answer.

A business can be visible nationally and still disappear when somebody asks what's nearby, who serves their area, where they can pick something up or which location makes the most sense.

Maps, Google Business Profiles, local organic results, location pages, reviews, entity relationships and real-world business details all come into play.

AI adds another layer of interpretation. The local signals underneath it still have to make sense.

Explore Local Search

04Paid
Bids at one query measured against a threshold, with the ones that clear it funnelling to a single conversion.

We use AI in paid search where it saves time or helps us see something faster.

We use it for pattern analysis, research, testing ideas and working through larger sets of data.

Budget decisions stay with people.

So do strategy, approvals, targeting changes and anything else that can burn through money if somebody gets clever with automation.

Explore Paid Search

Cannabis Marketing Services

We work across industries, with particularly deep experience in regulated cannabis search, advertising and local growth.

04Operating system

Cultivation OS

Our operating system for search.

Built right. Deployed fast.

Good search work shouldn’t sit in a queue.

See how we built DankRank

Cultivation OS is how we run AI search, organic, local and paid together instead of treating them as four separate projects.

It isn't software you log into and it isn't a client dashboard. Live search data and AI analysis go in, people make the calls that carry consequences, agents handle the repetitive checking, and what each experiment teaches us goes back into the next decision.

There is nothing here for you to log into. Cultivation OS is our side of the work, not a product we sell.

How Cultivation OS runs. Live search signals feed a human decision, which leads to coordinated execution across AI search, organic, local and paid, then to an experiment, then to measurement. Measurement returns to the next human decision, so the sequence is a loop rather than a pipeline.
  1. Live signalsSearch, AI answers, Maps, paid
  2. Human decisionA person owns the consequence
  3. Coordinated executionAcross all four disciplines
  4. ExperimentOne change, one question
  5. MeasurementWhat actually happened
  6. Next decisionMeasurement returns to the decision, not to a report

What comes out is a search program where you can see what changed, why we changed it and what happened after.

Cultivation OS is our operating system because the way search work gets done had to change too.

Cultivation OS combines human search judgment, AI intelligence, purpose-built agents, live search data and continuous experimentation.

It gives us a consistent way to research, compare, test, review and learn without pretending every part of the job belongs in an automated workflow.

Judgment

Human Search Judgment

Search data is messy.

SERPs change. AI answers vary. Attribution gets fuzzy. A keyword tool can show demand without telling you whether ranking for the term would actually help the business.

Experience matters most when the answer isn't sitting neatly in a dashboard.

Intelligence

AI Intelligence

AI helps us get through more evidence and explore more possibilities without spending half the day doing mechanical work.

We use it to speed up research, compare information, surface patterns and challenge our own assumptions.

Workflow

Search Agents + Workflows

Some work should be repeatable.

Monitoring, comparisons, data collection and QA don't need to depend on somebody remembering every step from memory.

We build workflows for the repeatable parts and keep judgment around the parts that can't safely be reduced to a checklist.

Input

Live Search Data

We work from current search behaviour and current data.

If the SERP changed, the plan may need to change with it.

Human gate

Human Decision + QA

AI can prepare evidence.

People still make the consequential calls.

That line matters to us.

Feedback

Experiment, Measure, Learn

Search keeps changing, so our operating system has to learn too.

We test things. We document what happened. We keep what holds up and drop what doesn't.

SEE HOW CULTIVATION OS WORKS

EXPLORE WHAT WE DO

05Operating stack

The Stack Behind the Signal

There's no reason to pretend the tools are magic.

Our working stack includes Claude, Claude Code, OpenAI, Semrush, Google Analytics 4, Google Search Console, BigQuery, search APIs and purpose-built agents and workflows.

Claude and Claude Code are central to how this site is being built and how parts of the workflow are structured.

OpenAI is part of the broader working stack where it makes sense.

ChatGPT matters in a different way. It's one of the places people now search, ask and get recommendations, so we measure what happens there and test whether changes hold up over time.

The tools will change, and the important part is knowing what each one is good at, what it isn't, and where an experienced person still needs to make the call.

SEE HOW WE BUILT DANKRANK

Measured search environments

Places people search. We measure these. We do not operate them.

  • Google Searchrankings, features and what the results page shows
  • Google AI Overviews and AI ModeGoogle's AI answers, measured as their own surface
  • Google Mapslocal results, where the work is local
  • ChatGPTwe measure what happens there and test whether changes hold up over time
  • Geminianswers, citations and what gets recommended
  • Claudean answer environment, measured separately from its use as a tool
  • Perplexityanswers and the sources they are assembled from
  • Microsoft Copilotmeasured as an answer environment

What we use

Software and data we use to do the work.

Build + Reason

  • Claudereasoning, analysis, comparison
  • Claude Codethis site, under governance
  • OpenAImodels and APIs in the broader working stack

Search Intelligence

  • Semrushsearch visibility and competitor data
  • Live search datacurrent results and answer behaviour
  • Search APIsstructured collection

First-Party Signals

  • Google Search Consolesearch performance
  • Google Analytics 4site measurement
  • Google Tag Managertag and consent delivery
  • Google Adspaid search delivery and spend data
  • BigQuerywarehoused first-party data

Delivery + Infrastructure

  • Cloudflarewhere this site is served from

DankRank execution

Ours. A named person is accountable for what it decides.

  • Vee Popat's search judgmentthe gate on consequential calls, and the name attached to them
  • Cultivation OShow the work is run. An operating model, not software
  • Purpose-built agentsthe repeatable parts
  • Workflowsmonitoring, comparison, collection
  • Experimentstest, document, keep what holds up
  • Human reviewevery consequential call, before anything ships

The stack we actually use

  • Astro

06Founder

Vee PopatFounder, DankRank

Founder / Operator

FOUNDER JUDGMENT × TEAM EXPERTISE × AI LEVERAGE

Vee Popat, founder

20+ Years in Search. Now Working at AI Speed.

DankRank was founded by Vee Popat.

I've been working in search and digital marketing long enough to have watched a lot of "SEO is dead" predictions come and go.

Search kept changing, which is the more useful lesson.

That experience matters now because AI search is moving quickly enough that it's easy to confuse something new with something proven.

I'm interested in both, but I don't treat them as the same thing.

My background spans search strategy, content, paid media, analytics, ecommerce, local search, agency leadership and work in competitive and regulated markets.

That experience shapes how DankRank approaches the work.

It doesn't mean I personally touch every task.

DankRank is built around founder judgment, team expertise and AI leverage. My job is to stay close to the thinking, the evidence and the decisions where experience makes a difference.

DankRank didn't start from a blank page. I also run ColaDigital, an active digital marketing agency I've operated for nearly a decade, and that operating experience is part of what I brought into this one. The fuller story belongs on the About page; here, the important point is that DankRank is a separate AI-native search agency built for the way search works now.

Meet Vee and DankRank

  • 20+ Years in Search & Digital Marketing
  • Google Partner
  • Google Ads Certified
  • Google Analytics Certified

07Evidence

We're New. So We're Showing the Work.

DankRank doesn't have a ten-year archive of branded case studies.

We launched in 2026.

Rather than make the evidence sound older than it is, we're publishing what happens from the beginning.

BUILD

PUBLISHED

How We Built DankRank

The site is one of the first things we're putting under the microscope.

We're documenting the search architecture, Claude Code build, technical decisions, AI-assisted workflows, QA, changes we made along the way and the decisions that didn't survive.

SEE HOW WE BUILT DANKRANK

BASELINE

DAY 0 RECORDED

DankRank Launch Visibility Baseline

Before we start trying to improve visibility, we're recording where the domain starts.

That gives us something to compare against later instead of relying on memory or cherry-picked screenshots.

See the Launch Visibility Baseline

EXPERIMENT

EXPERIMENT RUNNING

AI Citation Experiment #001

We're also testing whether a brand-new domain can earn brand citations in ChatGPT.

It may be possible on a new domain.

Maybe it takes longer than people selling GEO would like to admit.

Maybe the answer depends heavily on the query, source set and type of information being requested.

We'll publish the result either way.

Follow AI Citation Experiment #001

Explore all PROOF

GET YOUR FREE VISIBILITY BASELINE

08Open question

Experiment 001NO OBSERVATION YET

One of Our First Questions: Can a New Domain Become a Source?

A mature site comes with history; a new one does not.

That makes DankRank useful for testing some of the assumptions being made about AI visibility right now.

We're tracking where the domain appears, what gets cited, which sources show up beside us, what changes after we publish something new and whether any movement is repeatable.

A single prompt screenshot won't count as proof.

One lucky ranking does not count either.

We want enough evidence to know whether something moved or whether we just happened to catch a good result.

See what we're testing

A new domain starts with no history behind it. What it can do is publish, and each thing published is a mark on the record. The reach toward being cited as a source is drawn to an open ring, because nothing has been observed yet.
  1. New domain, no history
  2. What gets published
  3. What gets cited: open question

09Methods

Our Methods Are Public Too

One closed block for the parts of Cultivation OS that are proprietary, and beneath the boundary three open sheets for the thinking behind the work, which is published.
  • Proprietary parts
  • The thinking behind the work

I don't think search methodology should disappear behind the phrase "proprietary process."

There are parts of Cultivation OS that are proprietary.

The thinking behind the work doesn't need to be hidden.

Our Methods section covers the arguments we're actively working from:

  • why search now behaves like one ecosystem
  • why we measure AI visibility before changing things
  • where AEO, GEO and AI SEO overlap
  • how citations appear to work
  • where human judgment still matters
  • why producing more AI content isn't much of a strategy by itself

Some of those views will change as the evidence changes, which is exactly why we publish them instead of treating them as permanent doctrine.

Read DankRank Methods

10Research

Research Has a Different Job

Methods are where we explain how we think.

Research is where we ask the data to do more of the talking.

On one side a premise branching into two steps that reconverge on a conclusion, which is what explaining how we think looks like. On the other, observations inside a dashed boundary, which is what a study with stated limits looks like.
  • Methods: how we think
  • Research: observations inside stated limits

Our research program looks at AI search visibility, citations, recommendation patterns, source overlap and the differences between what major search and answer systems surface.

We'll publish the methodology with the findings.

That way you can see the limits of the study as well as the interesting parts.

Explore DankRank Research

Useful References

Practical references for understanding how AI search works, how we measure it and how machines discover your site.

The AI Search Field Guide

A practical reference for AI SEO, GEO, AEO, citations, entities, the sources AI systems use and the language people are using around AI search.

How to Measure AI Search Visibility

How we think about prompt sets, citations, mentions, competitors, referral traffic and repeatable baselines.

AI Crawlers, llms.txt & Machine Discovery

A technical reference covering crawler access, robots.txt, llms.txt, GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, Google-Extended and how AI crawlers discover content.

11Transparent pricing

What It Costs

You shouldn't have to book a call just to find out whether we're anywhere near your budget.

All prices are in USD. Canadian clients may be quoted in CAD.

Three faded columns of a tier table with the middle one tallest, struck through. Below them, a bar the width of the problem with a scope bracket sized to it.
  • Not a three-column table
  • Scoped around the problem
  • Search + AI Visibility BaselineFREE

You get a written Visibility Baseline reviewed by the DankRank team and Vee.
Includes 2 significant competitors.
Delivered within 2 business days.

GET YOUR FREE VISIBILITY BASELINE
  • AI Visibility Strategy$2,500 one-time

    Built for a defined AI-search question or visibility problem that needs a plan before ongoing execution.

    • A defined prompt and query set tied to real buyer questions
    • Competitor visibility comparisons
    • Citation and source-pattern analysis
  • Search Strategy / Recovery$3,500 one-time

    For sites that need diagnosis, cleanup and a prioritized plan before committing to ongoing execution.

    • Search and page-ownership mapping
    • Crawl and indexation review
    • Information architecture recommendations
  • Local SearchFrom $1,800/month

    Ongoing local-search work for businesses that need profile management, location architecture, content, measurement and local visibility improvements over time.

    • Google Business Profile audit and optimization
    • Maps and local-organic visibility review
    • Location and market page architecture
  • AI Search Cultivation$3,500/month

    Ongoing work for brands that need continued measurement, implementation, testing and adjustment as AI search changes.

    • Brand and entity gap findings
    • Page and content priorities
    • Technical discovery findings where relevant
  • Organic Cultivation$3,500/month

    Ongoing organic-search work for brands that need implementation, measurement, content and architecture improvements over time.

    • Internal-link analysis and routing
    • Cannibalization and duplicate-content cleanup
    • Content inventory and keep / update / merge / redirect decisions
  • Google Ads ManagementFrom $1,000/month + media spendfor monthly media spend up to $10,000. For monthly media spend above $10,000, management is typically 12-15% of media spend, subject to a $1,000 monthly minimum.

    Ongoing paid-search management across Google Ads, and Microsoft Ads where the account warrants it, including analysis, testing, measurement and account improvements.

    • Paid search strategy and account review
    • Google Ads management
    • Search-term and query analysis
  • Meta Ads ManagementFrom $2,000/month + media spendfor monthly media spend up to $10,000. For monthly media spend above $10,000, management is typically 12-15% of media spend, subject to a $2,000 monthly minimum.

    Paid social campaign management for businesses that need controlled audience targeting, creative testing and measurable demand generation across Meta platforms.

    • Campaign strategy and account structure
    • Audience and geographic targeting
    • Creative and placement testing
    • Performance analysis and optimization
  • Programmatic Advertising$7-9 CPM management + media spendfor monthly media spend up to $15,000. For monthly media spend above $15,000, management is typically 12-15% of media spend, structured so that crossing the threshold cannot reduce the management fee below the applicable CPM-based model.

    Programmatic media management for businesses that need scalable reach across display, video and other eligible inventory with tighter audience and geographic controls.

    • Audience and inventory strategy
    • Geographic and frequency controls
    • Campaign pacing and optimization
    • Performance and attribution reporting
  • Fractional Head of Search & AI Visibility$5,000/month

    Senior search leadership across AI visibility, organic, local and paid search.

    • Search strategy and prioritization
    • Cross-channel search roadmap ownership
    • AI-search and AI-visibility leadership
  • Multi-service / multi-market Search + AI programsFrom $6,500/month

    Integrated search and AI visibility leadership for businesses managing multiple channels, markets or locations that need one coordinated growth strategy.

    • Cross-channel search strategy
    • Multi-market or multi-location prioritization
    • AI visibility and organic search coordination
    • Measurement, reporting and roadmap ownership

No bronze package.
No gold package.
No three-column pricing table designed to push you into the middle option.

We scope the work around the problem.

See all services

12Client feedback

What Clients Say About Working With Vee

Selected feedback from clients who've worked with Vee.

  • Found Vee a pleasure to work with: highly communicative, thorough and genuinely collaborative. He managed a fairly complex project, its timelines, deliverables and client expectations professionally.

    Ashley GaddYour Designer Ash

  • Vee provides awesome SEO work!

    Phon MaloneHello High

  • Worked with Vee for almost two years and found him extremely accessible and always available. He took the time to explain not only what was being done, but why.

    Alex SalamanGrowGeneration Corp.
  • 20+ Years in Search & Digital Marketing
  • Google Partner
  • Google Ads Certified
  • Google Analytics Certified

13Deliverable

Get a Search Visibility Baseline Before You Change Anything

Three readings taken and fixed at one vertical datum line, one of them accented as yours and two as competitors. Past the line, a dashed cone opening equally in both directions and containing nothing, because nothing has been observed yet.
  • Your footprint and 2 competitors, recorded
  • Anything after this, observed later

If you're not sure where the problem is yet, start here.

Send us:

  • your website
  • your primary competitor
  • a little context about the business or market
  • anything specific you're concerned about

Cultivation OS helps collect and structure the evidence.
The DankRank team reviews the evidence, and Vee reviews the final Baseline.

You get a written Visibility Baseline within 2 business days showing how you currently appear across search and how that compares with 2 significant competitors.

You do not need a discovery call to get it.

There is no paid step hidden behind the free version.

GET YOUR FREE VISIBILITY BASELINE

What you get: a founder-reviewed written baseline, 2 competitor comparisons and a clearer view of what search can currently see.

Price
Free
Competitors
2 significant competitors
Review
Founder-reviewed
Delivery
Within 2 business days
Call required
No call required

14Questions

Frequently Asked Questions

Is DankRank a new agency?

DankRank launched in 2026, so yes: the agency is new.

What isn't new is the operator. I've spent more than 20 years in search and I still run ColaDigital, so the experience behind the work has a history even if this brand doesn't. Rather than borrow somebody else's case studies, we're publishing our own build, our own baseline and our own experiments in PROOF, including the parts that don't work.

Do we have to sign a retainer to work with you?

You do not have to sign a retainer. Plenty of search problems are one decision, not a twelve-month program.

We start with the free Visibility Baseline because it tells both of us whether there's enough of a problem to justify hiring anybody. If a focused one-time piece of work is the right answer, we'll say so.

What if we only need one part of search?

A focused engagement is often the right place to start.

AI search, organic, local and paid are connected. That doesn't mean every engagement has to cover all four. The Baseline shows where the clearest gaps are, and if they sit in one place, that's where we work.

Who Does the Work?

I own the search judgment: page ownership, priorities, what gets published, what gets changed and what we're willing to claim.

Specialists come in where their depth beats mine, and AI and purpose-built workflows take the repetitive parts. What doesn't happen here is a senior name on the pitch and somebody else quietly running the account.

15Intelligence

Search Intelligence Without Filling Your Inbox for the Sake of It

We'll send useful observations from the work.

That can mean AI-search changes, SERP movement, experiments, research, things we tested and things we changed our minds about.

If there's nothing worth saying, we don't need to make up an update.

That should be a pretty low bar for an email list.

Grow where people search, ask and decide.

Get DankRank Search Intelligence

Explore DankRank Markets

Contact DankRank