GEO paper — 15–30% relative improvement on the Subjective Impression metric (LLM-rated answer quality from the source)

Claim: Same top methods achieved 15–30% relative improvement on the Subjective Impression metric — an LLM-rated measure of how favourably the source comes across in the synthesised answer.

Source: Aggarwal et al., arXiv:2311.09735 — Jun 28, 2024.

Confidence: Verified.

Caveat: Subjective Impression uses an LLM as judge, so the metric has the usual circularity caveats of LLM-as-judge methodology. Pair with GEO paper — Cite Sources / Quotation / Statistics methods achieved 30–40% relative improvement on the Position-Adjusted Word Count metric (the harder metric) for a balanced citation.

Why this matters for Candid: The "softer" of the two paper metrics — useful as a corroboration but not as the headline number.