Quick AI Visibility Check: A 30-Minute Checklist

1. Pick two assistants.

ChatGPT plus one of Gemini or Perplexity gives a useful spread; assistants lean on different sources, as how Perplexity chooses sources shows.

2. Use a fresh chat, signed out or in a private window where you can.

Memory and history can tilt answers towards what you have looked at before.

3. Open a sheet with these columns:

prompt, assistant, named (yes or no), position, rivals named, what was said, sources cited.

4. Write down your two main rivals first.

Deciding before you see the answers keeps the comparison honest.

5. Discovery:

"What are the best options for [your category] for [your typical buyer]?"

6. Shortlist:

"Which of those would suit [a real condition your buyers have]?"

7. Shortlist, head to head:

"How does [your brand] compare with [your main rival]?"

8. Objection:

"What are the downsides of [your brand]?"

9. Trust:

"Is [your brand] reliable? What do customers say about the service?"

10. Value:

"Is [your brand] worth the price compared with the alternatives?"

11. Decision:

"Which one would you buy, and where?"

12. Repeat in the second assistant.

Differences between the two are a finding in themselves.

13. Mark each answer:

named and accurate, named with errors, or not named.

14. Find the stage where you stop being named.

That stage decides what to fix. Why your brand disappears in follow-up questions explains the middle stages.

15. List every rival named where you were not.

Each is a gap with a name on it.

16. Note every wrong fact.

A wrong price or a discontinued product means something in the public record disagrees with you.

17. Note the sources cited.

Those are the pages shaping the answer about you right now.

18. Fix wrong facts first.

Correct the page the assistant relied on, or ask its owner to; a wrong fact can come back in every later answer.

19. Then work on the earliest stage where you drop out.

Losing at Discovery means you are missing from the coverage assistants read; losing at Trust means thin proof. Fixes further down the conversation do not help until you survive the earlier stages.

20. Check that crawlers can reach your key pages.

The free AI crawler checker takes a minute. A page an assistant cannot read cannot be cited.

21. Book the next check.

Same prompts, same assistants, next month. Answers vary from run to run, so one result is a snapshot; a pattern over several checks is a finding.