# How to check if ChatGPT recommends your website

Published 2026-10-21 by the Axpecto team. Source: https://www.axpecto.com/blog/how-to-check-if-chatgpt-recommends-your-website

**Key takeaways**

- Ask the questions your buyers ask, without your brand name, in a clean session with web search on.
- Record for each answer: named or not, position, whether your site was cited, and who was named instead.
- Ask a missed question again before counting it as lost; answers vary from one ask to the next.
- Repeat on every engine, every month, with the same question list.

To check whether ChatGPT recommends your website, ask it the questions your buyers ask, without naming your business, with web search on, and record whether each answer names you, links your site, and who it names instead. Do the same in Gemini, Claude and Perplexity, ask each question more than once, and repeat with the same questions every month.

## Step 1: Write the questions your buyers ask

Write 10 to 20 questions in your customers' own words. Mix the kinds of question people ask at different stages, and keep your brand name out of all of them:

- Category: "What are the best tools for X?"
- Problem: "I need to do X, what should I use?"
- Alternatives: "What are some alternatives to [a competitor]?"
- Comparison of two competitors: "Is [competitor A] better than [competitor B] for X?"

Questions that name you are worth asking separately, to see how assistants describe you, but never count them: "Is X any good?" names X because you did.

## Step 2: Ask in a clean session, with search on

- Use a temporary or logged-out chat, so the assistant's memory of you and your past chats doesn't shape the answer.
- Make sure the answer used web search. Answers with sources are what your buyers get for questions about products and tools; an answer from memory can be a year out of date.
- Ask from the country your customers are in, or say it in the question, because answers differ by location.

## Step 3: Record the same things every time

| Question | Engine | Named? | Position | Your site cited? | Brands named instead |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| What tools check if AI understands my website? | ChatGPT | No | - | No | Brand A, Brand B |
| Alternatives to Brand A? | Gemini | Yes | 3rd | Yes | Brand A, Brand C |

Mention rate is the share of rows marked Named. Citation rate is the share where your site was linked. Share of voice is your mentions divided by all brand mentions.

## Step 4: Ask again before you count a loss

The same question can get a different answer a minute later. If you weren't named, ask once more; only a question you miss every time is a real gap. With 10 questions, one answer changing moves your mention rate by 10 points, so read the figures as a direction, not a precise number.

## Step 5: Repeat on every engine, every month

ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity search different indexes and answer differently, and which one a buyer uses decides which answer they get. Keep the question list fixed so this month's figures can be compared with last month's.

## How do you automate it?

Done by hand, 12 questions on four engines, each asked twice, is close to 100 chats a month. Axpecto's [AI Visibility check](https://www.axpecto.com/ai-visibility) does exactly this: it writes the questions for your business, asks each engine with live search, re-asks misses, counts mentions from the answer text and citations from the links returned, and keeps the questions fixed between checks. It also flags answers that use your name for a different company. For what a good result looks like, see the [Random Talker case study](https://www.axpecto.com/blog/random-talker-ai-visibility-case-study).

## Common questions

### Why does ChatGPT not mention my business?

Usually because the pages it reads for that question don't mention you: you have no page answering it, or few other sites mention you. Less often, AI crawlers are blocked, your content needs JavaScript to appear, or another business with your name is better known.

### Does ChatGPT give everyone the same answer?

No. Answers vary between asks, between users with memory or custom instructions, and between locations. That is why you ask in a clean session, more than once, and track figures over time.