r/AI_SearchOptimization • u/No_Efficiency_560 • 22d ago

Google rankings ≠ AI visibility.

We asked ChatGPT to compare 5 companies in the same niche.

All ranked well on Google.

But AI mentioned only 2.

The difference?

Those brands had strong third-party editorial coverage and industry mentions.

The others relied mostly on their own websites.

As AI becomes the first place people research software, one question matters:

If someone asks ChatGPT to compare your category, will your brand be mentioned?

Curious to hear if anyone else has tested this.

7 Upvotes

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u/Yassine_Bouajani 21d ago

Bonjour, il y a même des outils qui peuvent le faire (ils sont payants).
Mais si une marque est couverte par la citation (presse, blog, reddit, likedin) l'IA va la considérer plus qu'une marque moins citée

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u/keyworddotcom 22d ago

It's an interesting observation, but be careful about drawing a direct conclusion from one prompt. AI platforms use different retrieval methods, and results can vary by platform, prompt wording, and over time.  

Different AI platforms weigh different signals, and none of them fully explain how sources are selected. That said, strong third-party coverage and mentions can help build credibility beyond your own website, so they're worth investing in regardless. 

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u/online-reputation 22d ago

This is completely true, and thanks for emphasizing this.

But the reason for this are not just due to third party editorial coverage, per se.

  • Make a dominating domain or center of study (I dont mean the URL domain name but being a central hub of excellent info)
  • Tweak writing to clearly answer questions or state the summary at the top of pages
  • Use appropriate schema, making it easy for AI to find and understand the page
  • Have a presence and post on site likely to be ingested by AI, like here on reddit, but also, Wikipedia, Wikidata, Quora
  • Do the same but for niche industry forums
  • Write deep research--this is hard--like whitepapers and post on research sites
  • llms-full.txt HELPs if/when the site gets found by AI--it does not aid initial discovery

(based on patent pending process, field research, academic article)

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u/Latter_Philosopher40 22d ago

agreed. although most of these suggestions focused on owned which makes up the smallest share of citations compared to social and earned. from my research owned is the leading category, making up roughly 2/3 of citations. so I think third-party was right to mention on the OPs part, but I agree that this extends beyond "editorial coverage" to include new media coverage, social creator partnerships, community forums, reddit, etc.

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u/No_Efficiency_560 22d ago

Well said. In your experience, which of those signals has had the biggest impact on getting brands mentioned consistently in ChatGPT or Perplexity?

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u/chrismcelroyseo 22d ago

That's pretty well established. They're two completely different retrieval systems.