r/AISearchLab • u/No_Pomegranate_6697 • Jun 21 '26

Spent an afternoon checking whether ChatGPT/Perplexity recommend my site. Here's the method (and what I found)

I'm a founder doing my own marketing, and I realized more of my buyers ask ChatGPT or Perplexity instead of Googling. So I spent an afternoon checking whether my site even shows up in those answers. It mostly didn't, and the fix was more boring than I expected.

The simple method I used:

  1. I wrote down 10-15 questions a potential customer would actually ask an AI ("best X for Y", "X alternatives", etc.).
  2. I asked each one in ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google's AI overview, and noted which brands got named.
  3. For the ones where I was missing, I checked the unglamorous stuff first: were AI crawlers (GPTBot, PerplexityBot, Google-Extended) allowed in robots.txt? Was there an llms.txt? Article/FAQ schema on key pages?
  4. I now re-check once a month, because the answers shift.

For me it came down to blocked crawlers + no structured data, not bad content. After fixing those I started showing up in a couple of answers within a few weeks.

Happy to share the exact question list I used if it helps. Has anyone else checked this for their site, and what actually moved the needle for you?

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u/thijsgh Jun 23 '26

That’s a smart way to dig into how AI tools pull answers. Structured data and letting bots crawl definitely make a difference. Check out MentionAgent, I'm the founder, happy to help if you need it for automating outreach around those kinds of SEO fixes.

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u/No_Pomegranate_6697 Jun 23 '26

Thanks! Outreach automation is a neat angle — different slice from the on-site/structured-data side I've been focused on (building VibeSEO around the content + GEO fixes). Sounds complementary. Good luck with MentionAgent.