How to track your AI visibility without a subscription

• Write twenty buyer questions for your product. Example: “best uptime monitoring for startups”, “yourproduct vs rivalname”, “pricing for log management”.
• Ask the same list in ChatGPT search, Perplexity, Google AI Mode, Claude, Gemini and Microsoft Copilot.
• Log three things for each question: who is named, who gets a clickable link, and the order. Paste the cited URLs.
• Repeat weekly. Compare week to week. Look for named, named without a link, or absent while a rival is named.
• Add a referrer segment in analytics for chatgpt.com, perplexity.ai, copilot.microsoft.com and gemini.google.com. Watch sessions and signups from those.
• Keep your robots.txt open to the answering and search crawlers listed below. If they cannot fetch you, you cannot be cited.

Assistants cite pages that answer a buyer’s question plainly. Start with specific, high-intent questions you want to win. Cover categories, comparisons and problems.

• Category picks: “best [product type] for [use case]”, “top [product type] with [capability]”.
• Comparison: “[yourproduct] vs [rival]”, “alternatives to [rival]”, “cheaper than [rival]”.
• Jobs to be done: “how to [do task] with [product type]”, “secure [thing] on a budget”.
• Buying details: “[product type] pricing”, “is [product type] GDPR compliant”, “self hosting [product type]”.
• Proof: “who uses [product type]”, “case study [use case]”.
• Branded: “[yourproduct] review”, “[yourproduct] documentation [topic]”.

Aim for twenty. If you are thin on ideas, read People Also Ask on Google and the headings on comparison pages that already rank. Use the same wording you see buyers using.

1. 1

   Make a tab per assistant

   Tabs: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Mode, Claude, Gemini, Copilot. Columns: Date, Question, Assistant answer title if any, Named brands in order, Links present Y/N, Cited URLs, Your rank among named, Notes.

2. 2

   Add a summary tab

   One row per question. Columns: Named with link count, Named without link count, Absent count, Rivals most cited, Pages to fix, Status.

3. 3

   Set cadence

   Weekly is enough for a small site. Put a thirty-minute slot in your calendar. If you ship a launch or a big page, run an extra cycle after indexing.

4. 4

   Define a naming rule

   Use your product name exactly, as on your site. Assistants are literal. “Acme Monitor” and “Acme Monitoring” read as different entities.

A filled row for “/pricing” might read: named without link in ChatGPT and Perplexity, absent in Claude, named with link in Copilot. That points to gaps you can close.

Generative engine optimisation means being named and cited in answers from ChatGPT search, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews and AI Mode, Claude, Gemini and Copilot. There is no submission form. They pull from web indexes and cite pages that answer cleanly.

• ChatGPT search: type your question. If it does not search, click Search. Copy the Sources panel and inline citations. The crawler does not execute JavaScript, so log server-rendered URLs.
• Perplexity: ask once in normal mode, once with Pro Search for key questions. Copy the numbered citations and the sources list.
• Google AI Mode: open the AI tab after a search. Copy the linked sources in the prose answer. If there is an AI Overview instead, use that.
• Claude: ask and copy inline citations. If it opens web results, log those first.
• Gemini: ask and check for links beneath the answer. If it searches, it grounds with Google Search and shows links. Copy them.
• Microsoft Copilot: ask in the browser or app. Copy the cited links drawn from Bing’s index.

If the answering and search crawlers cannot fetch your pages, you will not be cited. robots.txt is honoured voluntarily, and blocking training does not remove what is already collected. Keep answer crawlers in, even if you block model training.

Allow OAI-SearchBot while disallowing GPTBot if you want citations in ChatGPT search but no training. Allow Claude-SearchBot, PerplexityBot, Googlebot and Bingbot to be visible in assistants.

Visits from assistants arrive with referrers you can segment. This is your bottom-line check that citations send traffic. Google’s AI surfaces arrive as google.com, mixed with other search clicks.

• Create a segment or report for referrers: chatgpt.com, perplexity.ai, copilot.microsoft.com, gemini.google.com. Add bing.com and google.com for context.
• Track assisted signups and trials from those referrers. Add UTM tags on your own Pages or Spaces on Perplexity if you use them.
• Watch changes after a content update or a new comparison page. Does ChatGPT or Perplexity send you more sessions within 28 days of shipping?
• Compare the referrer trend to your sheet. A rise in “named with link” should precede a rise in assistant referrers. If not, the link may be low in the sources list.

Search Console reports clicks from AI Overviews and AI Mode inside normal web clicks. There is no separate breakdown as of 2026. Track those queries like any other in the Performance report.

Manual tracking gets you signal within an hour a week. Tracking products automate the asking, logging and change alerts. They are worth it when your list of questions, markets or rivals outgrows a sheet, or when a team needs alerts rather than a calendar slot.

• They ask your saved questions on a schedule across assistants and regions.
• They log named entities and cited URLs automatically.
• They alert you when you gain or lose a citation or when a rival displaces you.
• They add share of voice and time-series charts you would otherwise build by hand.
• Some connect to Search Console and analytics to join citations to clicks and conversions when you grant access.

Use a product when you run more than twenty questions across more than two markets, or when you manage several brands. Stay manual if you have one product and one market and you enjoy seeing the raw answers weekly.

You will see three states. Treat each differently, and fix one thing at a time. The aim is to be named with a link for your buying questions in as many assistants as possible.

• Named with link: protect and expand. Check the cited URL. Ship a cleaner version of that page with the answer in the first paragraph, clear headings that match the question and a visible date and author.
• Named without link: earn the citation. Assistants often cite lists and comparisons. Get your product onto the third-party list they already cite, or ship your own structured comparison that answers the question plainly.
• Absent while a rival is named: change the source set. Find which pages the assistant cites. Pitch those editors for inclusion, or build a page on your site that mirrors the structure and scope they favour and interlink it from /pricing, /features and relevant guides.

A fixed page looks like “/guides/best-uptime-monitors-for-startups”: H1 that matches the query, a summary table in the first screen, consistent product names, a date, and links out to rivals and sources the assistants already cite.

Search-backed assistants retrieve from web indexes and reward structure and clarity. Write for quotation. Add the pages that assistants and the lists they cite already favour. Keep JavaScript from hiding content.

• State the answer in the first two paragraphs. Example on “/pricing”: first lines list plans, who each is for and the monthly price.
• Use headings that match questions: “Is it SOC 2 compliant”, “Does it have an API”, “Can I self host”.
• Add a summary table for comparisons. Include features, limits, and who each product is for. Use exact product names.
• Use consistent product and company names across your site, docs and pricing. Do not alternate “Acme Monitor” and “Acme Monitoring”.
• Add a visible date and an author. Update the date when you refresh numbers or screenshots.
• Link out to sources assistants already cite. If they quote a study or a standard, cite it the same way.
• Ensure core content renders server side. ChatGPT’s crawler does not execute JavaScript. If your answer appears only after scripts run, it will not be read.
• Get listed on roundups that already rank. If AI answers cite “Top X tools” posts, ask for inclusion or provide data that merits it.

Give AI visibility a small, regular slot. Aim to move one question from absent to named each month. Fold fixes into your normal shipping rhythm. Keep ownership simple.

• Weekly: run the sheet, scan referrers, file one fix ticket. Example: add a summary table to “/alternatives/rivalname”.
• Monthly: review the summary tab. Pick two questions to push from named without link to named with link. Plan two pitches to cited roundups.
• Quarterly: audit robots.txt for the crawler tokens above, and ship or refresh two comparison pages or buying guides.
• Assign one owner. Add a deputy for holidays. Keep the questions list in version control next to your site content.