Practical Experiments in AI Search Visibility
If you’re looking for tools for AI Mode, ChatGPT and other AI search platforms, this section covers the software I’ve tested for measuring brand mentions, citations, recommendations and competitor visibility.
AI visibility software can save a considerable amount of manual work. But that doesn’t necessarily mean every small business needs it. If you only want to monitor a handful of important prompts, testing them manually may still be perfectly practical. In fact, starting manually can be useful because it helps you understand what AI visibility … Read more
Start looking at AI visibility software and many of the platforms can initially appear quite similar. Among the products we have looked at so far, the central idea is broadly consistent: choose prompts that matter to your business, monitor what AI platforms return, record whether your brand appears, compare it with competitors and track citations … Read more
AI visibility testing can be carried out manually. In fact, I think there is considerable value in starting that way. Running searches yourself helps you understand what you are actually measuring, how much AI-generated answers can change, the difference between a mention, recommendation and citation, and why the prompts you choose matter so much. But … Read more
One of the hardest questions in AI visibility testing comes before you run a single test: Which prompts should you actually monitor? It is easy to type a few obvious questions into ChatGPT, Google AI Mode or another AI search platform and start recording which businesses appear. But a handful of obvious prompts may tell … Read more
While looking more closely at NOLA Marketing after our recent discussion of the NOLA/OtterlyAI case study, I came across an article by Emily Matthews that connected particularly strongly with several things we have been observing in our own AI visibility tests. The article is What Is a Query Fan-Out in Answer Engine Optimization (AEO)?. Emily … Read more
I recently read an interesting case study published by OtterlyAI about NOLA Marketing’s work for Single Point of Contact. It caught my attention because several parts of the process closely match conclusions we have reached independently through our own AI visibility testing. The headline results are certainly impressive. OtterlyAI reports that, over a three-month period, … Read more
I have spent a lot of time manually testing how businesses, products and websites appear in AI-generated search results. That has involved repeating the same searches, changing customer requirements, comparing competitors, checking citations and running the same question through different AI platforms. Manual testing is extremely useful because it helps you understand what you are … Read more