Why this is now a distinct channel
Buyers increasingly ask an assistant rather than a search engine, and the assistant returns a short list rather than ten links. Being on that list is a different problem from ranking, because the sources differ.
Google's AI Mode and Perplexity draw roughly 90% of brand citations from Google's top ten results. ChatGPT pulls only about 30% from that pool, and overlaps Google and Bing top results by just 8%. Ranking first in Google and being invisible in ChatGPT are entirely compatible states.
What this checker does
It asks five questions in the shape a real buyer would use — "what are the best X", "who should I hire for X", "compare the leading providers of X" — then checks whether your brand appears, and records which names came up instead. That second list is usually more useful than the first result: it tells you who currently owns the answer.
What moves the number
Generative engine optimisation is roughly 80% strategic and 20% technical. Structured data and an llms.txt file help a crawler parse you; they do not make a model recommend you. What does:
- Third-party presence. Models cite what other sources say about you far more readily than what you say about yourself. Reddit alone supplies about 24% of Perplexity's commercial-intent citations.
- Comparison content. "X vs Y" pages and category round-ups are disproportionately quoted because they are shaped like an answer.
- Being a recognisable entity. Consistent naming, linked profiles, and enough independent mentions that the model has something to draw on.
The technical layer still matters, and it is cheap — but it is the last 20%, not the first.
Questions
Why does the result change between runs?
Model outputs are not deterministic and their underlying indexes update. Treat a single run as a snapshot and track the direction over weeks rather than reading one result as fact.
It says not configured.
The checker calls a language model API, which needs a key. Add OPENAI_API_KEY or ANTHROPIC_API_KEY to the Vercel project environment and redeploy. Everything else on this site runs without one.
I am not mentioned at all. Where do I start?
With third-party presence, not your own site. Get into the comparison round-ups in your category, and build genuine presence in the communities where your category is discussed. That is what models read.
Is this the same as SEO?
Overlapping but not the same. Ranking helps for Perplexity and Google's AI Mode. For ChatGPT the correlation is weak, which is why it needs measuring separately.