From negative AI coverage to the top seven local car rental recommendations in New York
We built an additional acquisition channel for a local rental service, connecting technical GEO work, content, external sources and analytics.
What are the best local car rental companies in Brooklyn?
Local rental service with Brooklyn and airport locations.
Five locations competing with global rental networks
Drivo operates in New York and New Jersey, with its locations concentrated around Brooklyn and the airports.
In organic and paid search, it competes with Hertz, SIXT, Enterprise and Avis: international brands with many more locations and significantly larger budgets.
We looked for another opportunity to enter the customer’s consideration set through relevance to their situation, rather than the scale of the network.
By 2026, Drivo had built a foundation for its GEO strategy
GEO did not start in isolation. Drivo already had local landing pages, an extensive blog, an established backlink profile and connected analytics. Since 2023, the number of visible search queries had grown roughly 25-fold and the link profile had gained more than 25,000 mentions.
Queries for which the website appears in search results.
Rounded figures from working SEO snapshots covering 2023–2026.
Search engines knew the brand. AI assistants barely did.
In November 2025, Drivo rarely appeared for non-branded prompts. Some AI answers repeated negative context from external sources.
Inconsistent sentiment, limited visibility of owned content and absence from most non-branded recommendations.
Checked the brand across hundreds of commercial and local prompts.
Mapped question groups to landing pages and content.
Strengthened external sources, reviews and clear brand entities.
Connected referrals and conversions with Google Analytics and Roistat.
Around 500 prompts in Russian and English
We measured branded prompts separately so they would not inflate the picture. The main focus was situations where a customer was still choosing a rental company.
New York
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local alternatives to Hertz in NYCDrivo vs Sixt for airport car rentalWe rebuilt the digital context around the brand, not just one page.
The website as an answer source
We reworked more than 50 landing pages, clarifying first screens, headings and context, and adding FAQs, structured data and llms.txt.
A page is easier to interpret when its opening explains where the service operates, who it serves and what terms it offers.
Content around the decision
We developed blog content for informational queries, comparisons, routes and questions people ask AI assistants.
Local competitors left some informational demand unanswered. We selected topics with potential both for organic rankings and as sources for AI answers.
External brand authority
We developed a review strategy and strengthened directory listings, publications and the backlink profile. External promotion spend exceeded $5,000.
External sources initially contributed to negative brand context. The work therefore addressed what other platforms said about the company, alongside its own website.
From rare mentions to the first group of recommendations
The strongest changes appeared in local Brooklyn prompts and rental searches near airports.
Position ranges depend on the prompt, language and AI service. This page shows an aggregated snapshot for priority prompt groups.
AI influences the choice before a booking happens
GEO’s contribution can extend beyond visits directly attributed to AI Assistants in analytics.
We connected AI referrals to the overall analytics setup, looking beyond last click to assess the channel’s role in the customer journey.
GEO did not replace SEO or paid media. It gave the brand another place in the customer’s decision.
Regular inclusion in local AI recommendations.
A shift from negative to predominantly positive brand context.
Measurable AI traffic connected to subsequent customer actions.
GEO began as an experiment: could a new channel help a local brand compete with global networks for attention? After consistent recommendations and measurable AI referrals, the work became part of the ongoing SEO, content and analytics program.
