Chapter 03 of 05

See where AI answers cite your clients.

Track the questions your clients care about. See when selected AI answers mention or cite them, and inspect the sources behind each result.

See a sample report

Answers, mentions and sources

Evidence for client reporting

Choose questions
Track AI answers
See mentions & citations

Platform facts

assistants with prompt tracking: 4
answer surfaces in total: 6
engines with web search, not a simulation: Live
a confidence range on every mention rate: ±

Your client report

See the answers. Keep the evidence.

Track sampled live answers in the client’s market and language. Citations, brand presence and referral visits are separate signals.

Sample figures for Northwind Cycles, a fictional client.

Scorecard · Northwind CyclesSample

Citation share: 31%+6 pp; How often a tracked AI answer cites a client page.; Source links, not visits. Change is in percentage points.
Share of voice: 58%+4 pp; Client mentions compared with other brands in tracked answers.; A mention does not require a source link.
Sources behind the answer: 46; Domains used as sources, including the client’s and other websites.; Review these sources to find relevant content gaps.
Visibility trend: 12 weeks; Compare measurements over time.; Results can shift without a change to the client’s site.

What each signal tells you.

Know what each metric tells you before you put it in a client report.

AI citationsDoes the answer use your client as a source?

Track relevant questions and see which answers link to a client page as a source.

Find citation gaps and choose pages to improve.

Brand mentions & share of voiceHow visible is the client alongside competitors?

Compare brand mentions in tracked answers. A mention names the client; a citation also uses a client page as a source.

Compare brand presence across topics and competitors.

AI referral trafficDo AI services send visitors to the site?

Referral reporting shows visits attributed to AI services. It is a separate signal from citations and automated crawler requests.

Report visits separately from citations and crawler activity.

Illustrative workflow

Citation tracking

Tracked question

AI answerClient page cited

Evidence from sampled answers

Brand visibility

Tracked topic

Brand mentionsCompetitive context

A mention can appear without a source link

Referral reporting

AI service

Visitor follows a linkAttributed site visit

A site visit is separate from a tracked answer

Mentioned or cited? See the difference.

Mentioned and cited

Mentioned is not cited. A citation links to a source.

Sample Three illustrative answers about the fictional Northwind Cycles.

Absent

The client is not in the answer at all.

AI answer

“Bike service options include Competitor A and Competitor B.”

SourcesOther websites. No client page.

Review the question and its sources for content gaps.

Mentioned

The client is named, but no client page is a source.

AI answer

“Bike service options include Northwind Cycles.”

SourcesOther websites. No client page.

This records a brand mention, not a client source link.

Cited

Source link

One of the client’s own pages is a source in the answer.

AI answer

“Northwind Cycles offers bike service in Seattle.”

Sources northwindcycles.com/bike-service

The reader has a source link. A visit is measured separately.

How we track questions and check sources

From question to evidence

Ask. Read the answer. Check its sources.

Illustrative prompt · fictional bike shop

Your question

Where can I get my bike serviced?

ChatGPTClaudePerplexityGemini

Answer sources

Match source links to the client’s pages.

How tracking runs

Your questions. Your market.

Choose the questions: Write prompts or use suggestions. Group them by topic.
Set the cadence: Up to weekly, at your chosen intensity. Run any prompt on demand.
Check the coverage: Assistant coverage follows your plan. Google AI Mode and AI Overviews use keyword tracking.

Full measurement method

Choose the questions: Write the questions to track, or start with suggested prompts. Group them by topic.
How it is asked: Scheduled prompts are sent to the live engines with web search, in the client’s market and language. Not a simulation of an engine.
How often: The cadence follows the intensity you set, up to weekly, and any prompt can also run on demand.
Tracked services: Prompts: ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and Gemini. Keywords: Google AI Mode and AI Overviews. Your plan sets assistant coverage.
What counts as a citation: The sources the answer was built on are read and matched against the client’s own pages. A name without one of those pages behind it is a mention, not a citation.
What it is not: A sample of tracked prompts, not every end-user conversation — and not the same as AI-referred visits or crawler fetches, which are measured separately.

How to interpret the results and their limits

How to interpret the results.

Uncertainty in mention rates: Mention rates include an uncertainty range. A small sample gives less confidence than repeated measurements.
Sentiment, not just mentions: Every mention classified as positive, neutral or negative — being talked about badly is not visibility.
Position in the answer: See where the client is named in the answer, alongside whether the client appears at all.
Google AI Mode and AI Overviews: Citations inside Google’s conversational answers and in the summaries at the top — measured separately, never mixed with blue links.

6 tracked surfaces2 Readable HTML

Clean HTML is readable for Grok and Copilot. Citations from Grok and Copilot are not tracked yet.

Which AI services are covered?

Six services have answer tracking, depending on your plan; two more can read the improved HTML.

Answer tracking

Coverage follows your plan

ChatGPTTracked with promptsAnswers with web search

ClaudeTracked with promptsAnswers with web search

PerplexityTracked with promptsAnswers with web search

GeminiTracked with promptsAnswers with web search

Google AI OverviewsTracked by keywordSearch answers

Google AI ModeTracked by keywordSearch answers

Readable HTML

No separate citation tracking

GrokReadable HTMLCitations not trackedReadable HTML

Microsoft CopilotReadable HTMLCitations not trackedReadable HTML

Crawler identities and tracking methods

ChatGPT: OAI-SearchBot · ChatGPT-User · GPTBot
Search index, answer-time fetch and training are separate bots · prompt tracking
Claude: Claude-SearchBot · Claude-User · ClaudeBot
Search, answer-time fetch and training are separate bots · prompt tracking
Perplexity: PerplexityBot · Perplexity-User
Index crawler and answer-time fetch · prompt tracking
Gemini: Googlebot
Read through Googlebot; Google-Extended is a training control in robots.txt, not a crawler · prompt tracking
Google AI Overviews: Googlebot
The summary above the blue links · tracked per keyword
Google AI Mode: Googlebot
Google’s conversational answers · tracked separately from Overviews

Alongside AI answers

The rest of the search picture.

Explore rankings, backlinks, search performance and local positions when you need more context. Each is measured separately.

Keyword rankings & backlinks

Keyword rankings & backlink analysis

Review search positions and link authority alongside AI visibility.

Rankings & keywords

See which searches find the client.

Follow Google and Bing positions. Find keyword gaps and pages competing for the same search.

Explore keyword analysis

Google and Bing, weekly: Track keyword positions weekly, with daily tracking and on-demand refresh available.
Volume, difficulty and intent: Review monthly search volume, ranking difficulty and search intent, with a month-by-month demand history.
Cannibalization detection: Find client pages competing for the same keyword.
Keyword gap against competitors: Find keywords competitors rank for and the client does not, ordered by opportunity.
Position distribution and SERP features: See keywords in the top three, top ten and beyond, plus snippets, images, video and AI answers.
Keyword workshop and saved lists: Research keywords on demand and save analyses in reusable lists.
Traffic estimate and competitive map: Compare estimated traffic and visibility with tracked competitors. Keyword topics receive a score from 0–100.
Site Explorer and technology detection: Review a domain’s rankings, keywords, links, age, AI share and website technology.

Links & authority

Understand who links to the site.

Review referring domains, new and lost links. Find opportunities competitors already benefit from.

Explore link analysis

The full link profile, weekly: Totals, referring domains and what changed since the last measurement.
Anchor text profile: Review the words other sites use when linking to the client.
New link alerts: Receive an alert when a notable new site links to the client.
Lost link detection: Find links that have disappeared and decide which to follow up.
Link opportunities: Domains that link to competitors but not to the client yet.
Link gap against competitors: Where rivals earn links the client misses entirely.
Referring domain profile: Review referring domains and their authority alongside the total count.
Internal link opportunities: Find relevant pages to link together using content meaning, rather than exact word matches.

Search performance after a change

Compare Search Console and Analytics reporting before and after deployment.

Put each change in context.

Compare search reporting before and after a deployment. Fixes and rollbacks appear on the timeline.

Timing alone does not prove a change caused a result.

Follow the original data.

Daily imports bring clicks, impressions, search positions and sessions into your client workspace.

Look beyond a single number.

Explore individual pages, search queries and traffic sources. Compare page quality over time.

Explore the search performance reports

Impact per deploy: A before-and-after window with Google’s own clicks and impressions for every single change that was deployed.
Markers in the traffic graph: Deployed fixes, content changes and rollbacks marked on the click curve to compare timing with performance trends.
Search Console and Analytics daily: Real clicks, impressions, positions, click-through rates and sessions imported every day — not a number computed in-house.
Every visit classified: Human, search engine, AI assistant or bot. Not just the AI share, but the whole distribution — and which assistants the visits came from.
Who earns clicks, and who does not: Performance per page with position and click-through rate, and the actual queries that bring people to the client.
Quality snapshots per page: How each page’s quality and performance change over weeks, not just where it stands today.

Analysis tools

Visibility analysis tools

Investigate source pages, competitors and the reasons behind a result.

Live answer test

Ask a question. Inspect the answer.

Try a prompt, see the assistant’s answer and inspect which pages it cites.

Crawler View

See the page a crawler reads.

Inspect HTML returned to a request using a crawler identity. This is a simulated request, not an observed crawler visit.

Measurement checks

Compare the evidence.

Compare source links from independent measurement routes. Review the visibility score separately.

Questions, forums & entities

Find the next opportunity.

Find questions the client’s pages do not answer yet, plus relevant discussions and business information to review.

Explore all visibility analysis tools

Test a live AI answer: Type a question and inspect a live assistant answer and its source links, with suggestions for what to review.
Crawler View: Inspect the HTML returned to a request using a crawler user agent. This is a simulated request, not a verified visit from that crawler.
GEO score: One AI visibility score from 0 to 100 built on seven weighted signals, identical for every site — so scores can be compared.
Measurement cross-check: Run the same prompt through independent measurement routes and compare whether the citation signals agree.
Entity authority: The client’s presence in Wikipedia, Wikidata and Google’s Knowledge Graph — the sources machines trust most.
Answer opportunities: Questions people actually ask that the client’s site does not answer yet.
Forum opportunities: Reddit and Quora threads ranking for the client’s keywords — the discussions assistants pull answers from.
Ads in AI answers: Who pays to appear in ChatGPT answers on the client’s topics.

Local search

Local search visibility

See how Maps positions vary across locations around a business.

Google Maps positionsSample

Same search. Different locations.

Each square is a search location. Its number is the business’s position there.

“bike service seattle”Seattle · 3-mile radius

1186914742595213783261113971016

Top 34–1011+

1 means first place. Lower numbers are better. These sample positions are not a prediction or a live result.

Beyond the map

Check the business’s local presence.

One business identity.

Compare business details across the website, directories and social profiles. Connect them with structured data.

Follow reviews. Help customers leave one.

Monitor Trustpilot, Google Reviews and Tripadvisor weekly. A QR code gives customers a direct route to the Google review form.

All local presence tools

Name, address and phone: Compare registered business details with the website, and add structured data.
Directory presence: Check listings in leading directories for the client’s market, plus Facebook.
Reviews monitored weekly: Follow rating, review count and changes on Trustpilot, Google Reviews and Tripadvisor.
QR code for Google reviews: Give customers a direct route to the business’s Google review form.
Social profiles detected: Find the client’s social accounts and connect them to the site’s structured data.

See where AI answers cite your clients.

See the answers. Keep the evidence.

What each signal tells you.

AI citationsDoes the answer use your client as a source?

Brand mentions & share of voiceHow visible is the client alongside competitors?

AI referral trafficDo AI services send visitors to the site?

Mentioned is not cited. A citation links to a source.

Absent

Mentioned

Cited

Ask. Read the answer. Check its sources.

Your questions. Your market.

How to interpret the results.

Which AI services are covered?

Answer tracking

Readable HTML

The rest of the search picture.

Keyword rankings & backlink analysis

See which searches find the client.

Understand who links to the site.

Search performance after a change

Put each change in context.

Follow the original data.

Look beyond a single number.

Visibility analysis tools

Ask a question. Inspect the answer.

See the page a crawler reads.

Compare the evidence.

Find the next opportunity.

Local search visibility

Same search. Different locations.

Check the business’s local presence.

One business identity.

Follow reviews. Help customers leave one.

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