How can I check whether ChatGPT recommends my brand?
Ask ChatGPT the questions your buyers actually ask about your category (not "what is [your brand]"), in a clean, logged-out or temporary chat with web search on, and ask each question several times because answers change. Record whether your brand is named, in what position, who is named instead, and which websites are cited. The share of answers that name you is your visibility; repeat the same check every week to see the trend.
Why asking "What is [my brand]?" doesn't tell you anything
If you ask ChatGPT about your brand by name, it will usually find your website and describe you. That only proves it can find you. Buyers don't ask that way: they ask "what's the best tool for …" or "which brand should I buy for …", and the question is whether you are named in THAT answer.
The method
- Write 20–30 real buyer questions: category questions ("best accounting software for freelancers"), problem questions ("how do I stop late client payments"), and comparison questions ("X vs Y"). Leave out questions that contain your own brand name.
- Use a clean session: logged out, or a temporary chat with memory turned off. Personalisation and chat history change the answer.
- Make sure the answer uses web search. Recommendations for current products come from live search results, which is what most buyers see, not from the model's training memory.
- Ask each question at least three times, ideally on different days. AI answers vary from one run to the next, so one answer proves very little.
- If you sell in several countries, ask from each of them (or with that country in the question). Answers and sources differ by market.
- For every answer, record: were you named (yes/no), your position in any list, which brands were named instead, and which websites were cited.
Turning the answers into a number
- Visibility = answers that name you ÷ all answers. For example, named in 6 of 60 answers = 10%.
- Share of voice = answers naming you ÷ answers naming any brand you track.
- Position = where you appear when you are named (first, third, last).
- Sources = the websites cited most often. These are the pages the AI trusts for your category, and the places you most need to be mentioned.
Keep the question list fixed and re-run it weekly. A change only means something if you measured the same questions the same way.
Common mistakes
- Checking once and treating it as the truth. Run it several times.
- Counting questions that contain your brand name. You will always "win" those, which inflates the number.
- Checking only ChatGPT. Claude, Gemini, Perplexity and Google's AI Overviews often name different brands and cite different sources.
- Looking at the answer but not the sources. The cited pages tell you what to fix.
Doing it automatically
Doing this by hand for 30 questions, three times each, in two countries is 180 answers a week. AI visibility tools run the same method automatically. Aurvikon (that's us) asks your buyer questions every day with live web search, records who is named and which pages are cited, and turns the cited pages into a to-do list.
Questions people also ask
Does ChatGPT give everyone the same answer?
No. Answers vary between runs, users, countries and whether web search is used, which is why you should ask each question several times and keep the method fixed.
How often should I check?
Weekly is enough to see a trend by hand. Daily checks are useful once you are changing things and want to see the effect sooner.
Why does ChatGPT name my competitor instead of me?
Usually because the pages it reads for that question (lists, reviews, comparisons, forums) mention your competitor and not you. The cited sources show which pages those are.