Methodology
How we measure AI visibility
Short read on the visibility mini: what it counts, how a pass is run, and what it does not claim. Pair with the illustrative sample.
Offline pass
~8 prompts × 3 runs
Live check
3 hero queries, 6 cells
Kept separate
Live ≠ offline SoV
01
Problem
Buyers ask AI who to hire or buy from. If rivals get named and you do not, you lose the shortlist before the site visit.
- Surfaces include ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Google AI Overviews.
- AI visibility = whether your brand appears in those answers.
- Classic blue-link rankings alone do not answer that question.
- The mini shows the gap on a small, honest set of category buyer queries.
02
What we measure
Mention rate: how often your brand and named rivals appear in generated answers for selected buyer prompts.
- Offline share-of-voice is scored from the offline runs only.
- Optional live hero rows use ChatGPT Search and Google AI Overview.
- Live cells are separate paste checks, not folded into the offline total.
- That split keeps the snapshot readable and comparable.
03
How the mini works
About eight buyer prompts, three offline runs each, then score who gets named.
- Optional: three hero live spot-checks (six paste cells, skippable if blocked).
- Surfaces for live: ChatGPT Search + Google AI Overview.
- Sample page shows illustrative numbers for a fake brand (Northline Advisory).
- Product process stays ~8×3 offline plus those optional live cells.
04
What it does not prove
The mini is directional. It is not the full paid AEO Diagnostic.
- Not every query in your category.
- Engines differ day to day, so one pass is a snapshot, not a guarantee.
- Does not prove sitemap, llms.txt, or extractability are fixed.
- Those crawl signals are what the free mini-audit on the AEO page covers.