The method
How does the audit work, step by step?
The short answer
The AI Visibility Audit asks ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Mode 20 real buyer questions, three times each, records the 300 timestamped answers, maps every source the engines cited, checks whether your site is readable by AI crawlers, and hands you a prioritized fix list within 48 hours, for $490.
Published August 31, 2026 · the method is versioned and this page follows it
Eight steps
One deliverable per step, named before you pay.
Steps 1 to 4 are the $490 audit. Steps 5 to 8 are the execution, sold as The AI Visibility Program or run by your own team from the audit's plan.
The Engine Run
20 buyer questions, 5 seeded by you and 15 expanded by us (comparisons, alternatives, buying-intent variants), put to ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Mode, three times each. 300 real answers. We record who is named, how often, and who is named first.
Deliverable: the Share of Answer scorecard · day 1 to 2The Source Map
Every citation across the 300 answers, deduplicated and ranked. The review sites, listicles and communities the engines actually trust in your category, which becomes the target list for all off-site work.
Deliverable: the source map · day 2The Seat Check
Your category scanned against our directory of all 1,916 apps inside ChatGPT: which competitors already run an app, or whether the seat is still empty. Nobody else has this data.
Deliverable: the seat check · day 2The Machine Layer
Four checks: can GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot and Google-Extended reach your site; does your content exist without JavaScript; does your brand say the same thing everywhere; and the details that earn citations, natural-language URLs, visible dates, question-shaped titles.
Deliverable: the fix list, written as a developer ticket · week 1The Answer Pages
Pages built the way AI engines pick their quotes: the direct answer in the first 30% of the page, 40 to 60 words quotable as is, a title written as the question, at least one named expert quote, three sourced statistics, a comparison table when the query is comparative, an objections block and an FAQ.
Deliverable: the answer pages · continuousThe Placements
Work the source map: claim and fuel the review profiles, get into the listicles that feed the answers by writing to their authors, answer the live Reddit and Quora threads, publish long-form LinkedIn under a named person, pitch data to journalist platforms.
Deliverable: the placements log · continuousThe Monthly Study
One small study per month built from data you already own, one surprising number as the headline, syndicated everywhere. Original data is the highest-ceiling citation asset there is.
Deliverable: the monthly study · continuousThe Curve
Same questions, same engines, re-run on a schedule and judged on a four-week rolling average, because AI answers change heavily from month to month. The curve is the report. We run this method on our own site and publish our own curve.
Deliverable: the Share of Answer trend · monthlyWhat we refuse to sell
Two things you will not find in the report, on purpose.
The llms.txt file, sold as a strategy
Some agencies bill real money for creating and maintaining this file.
Ahrefs analyzed server logs across more than a hundred thousand domains and found AI crawlers almost never request it.
We create it because it costs five minutes, and we never charge a strategy for it.
(Ahrefs log study, June 2026)
Schema markup, sold as magic
No published study measures a citation lift from schema markup alone.
It stays good hygiene for other reasons. But it is not what moves an AI answer, so it is not what you pay us for.
The parts that do move answers are boring and verifiable: whether the crawlers can read you at all, whether the answer to the buyer's question exists on a page in a quotable form, and whether the sources the engines already trust mention you. That is where the eight steps spend your money.
Questions
Fair questions about the method. Straight answers.
Why three runs per question instead of one?
Because AI answers change from one run to the next. A single run tells you what one user saw once; three timestamped runs per engine tell you who reliably owns the answer. It is also why we judge progress on a four-week rolling average, never on a single reading.
Do you optimize my schema markup?
No, and we tell you why on the report itself: no study has measured a citation lift from schema alone, so we refuse to sell it as a GEO tactic. Same for llms.txt: Ahrefs' server-log research found that AI crawlers almost never request the file. The machine-layer work that does matter is crawler access, content that exists without JavaScript, and entity consistency.
Which steps are in the $490 audit, and which are the Program?
The audit is steps 1 to 4: the 300-answer measurement, the map of sources the AIs read, the ChatGPT App Store check and the list of technical fixes, plus a free re-audit at day 90. Steps 5 to 8, the pages, the placements, the study and the monthly curve, are the execution: that is The AI Visibility Program at $1,500 a month, and your own team can also run them from the audit's plan.
What do I physically receive?
A written report you can forward as-is: the scorecard with your five closest competitors, the ranked source list, the seat check, and the fix list written as developer tickets ranked by expected impact. The raw timestamped answers are available on request.
Free, 30 seconds
Before you buy any audit: run one free check.
One buyer question, two AI engines, and you see who gets named instead of you. The verdict lands in your inbox with the engines’ full answers.
Next
See the method priced, next to everyone else’s.
The same audit content sells for $1,500 to $7,500 on this market, usually tested on 10 to 30 prompts, once. We published the side-by-side comparison and the full 2026 price map so you can check that claim yourself.