First check whether your page change worked
Before checking AI mentions, reopen the exact public page you changed. Compare the relevant heading, fact, link or code with your starting record. Confirm the repair itself before drawing conclusions about business results.
For a plugin recheck, use the app’s saved inspection record or an explicitly imported portable record for the same address. Compare equivalent observations. A failed or unavailable recheck cannot resolve a previous finding. A draft that is not public cannot be checked through its live address.
Look at three separate things
Being named in an answer is one thing. Someone visiting your website is another. A person making an enquiry or buying is another again. A mention alone does not show that your work brought in business.
You can check a few answers yourself. If your website already has visitor reports, ask whoever manages them whether they can show visits from AI services. Those reports will not explain every customer journey.
Keep the check small enough to repeat
Choose a few questions a real customer might ask. Record the exact words, the tool, the date and what appeared. Check again on a regular date, such as once a month.
Answers and links can change. Your checks are a small sample, not a score for everything everyone sees. If you make several changes at once, you also cannot tell which one caused a later result.
Made-up example / Online stationery shop
A mention and a sale are different records
A shop adds clear details about its refillable notebooks. Next month it appears in one of the owner’s saved AI searches.
The owner records that mention. They separately note visits shown in their website reports and customers who say they found the shop through ChatGPT. They do not count the mention itself as a sale.
One thing to try
Start a note you can return to
- Write down three customer questions. Include your town if that matters. In ChatGPT, ask it to search the web for answers to those questions.
- Note whether it searched and showed source links. Keep that note with the exact questions, date and tool name. An answer without a web search is a different kind of check.
- For each answer, record whether you appeared, whether the details were right and whether there was a link.
- Note any website changes and the dates you made them.
- Ask new customers “How did you hear about us?” Keep their answers alongside enquiries or orders.
- Set a date to repeat the checks. Compare the notes without assuming one change explains everything.
How to check the result
- Compare the same address and observation before and after. Record unchanged and unavailable checks honestly.
- Keep page repairs, sampled AI mentions, visits and enquiries as separate measures. A later mention alone cannot establish what caused it.
Useful progress means clearer information and evidence of people taking the next step. Keep both in view.
Words in this guide
Only if you want to look them up.
Sources and further reading
Official documentation for the general guidance. These sources are not inspection findings about your page.
Published Studio article, for further reading: AI Visibility Is Finally Measurable. Here’s What to Track Every Week.
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