How to check whether ChatGPT recommends your store in 15 minutes

Step 1: Write the buying questions your shoppers ask (5 minutes)

Write 5 to 10 questions the way a real shopper would type them into ChatGPT. Think about the moment someone is ready to buy, not the moment they first hear about your kind of product. Use the words customers use in emails, reviews and chats with you, not your own product names.

Make most of them long and specific. AI assistants break one question into many smaller searches and build the answer from several sources, so specific questions are easier for a smaller store to win than broad ones. Questions with "best", "versus", "review" and "alternative" in them are where shoppers decide, so include a few.

• One broad question: "best beard oil"
• Two or three specific needs: "unscented beard oil for sensitive skin"
• One with a budget: "good beard oil under $30 in Australia"
• One gift question: "beard oil gift set for a dad who hates strong smells"
• One comparison: "[your brand] vs [main rival]"

Step 2: Ask each AI assistant every question twice

Open ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity. Start a fresh chat for every question, and use a private window or a temporary chat if you can, because your own history can colour the answer. Paste the exact same wording into each one.

Ask every question twice. AI answers change from one run to the next, so one answer can make you look better or worse than you really are. Two runs per question per assistant gives a fairer picture without taking all day.

Ignore the ads when you score. OpenAI's help centre says ChatGPT ads appear on the Free and Go plans, sit below the answer, are labelled as sponsored and do not influence the answer itself. Google is different: its Google Ads help page says ads can appear above, below or within AI Overviews, including in Australia and New Zealand. Only count what the answer recommends on its own.

Step 3: Write down who each answer names, and where

For every answer, note whether your store appears and how. There is a big difference between being the first brand named and being a link at the bottom. Write down the other brands named too, in order, because these are the rivals AI thinks of first for that question.

Use four simple labels so your notes stay quick and consistent from month to month.

• Top 3: you are named among the first three brands
• Lower: you are named, but further down
• Link only: your website is cited, but your brand is not recommended
• Not there: no mention and no link

Step 4: Note which websites the answer quotes

Most answers list or link the pages they drew from. Copy those website names into your notes. Look for patterns: the same review site, "best of" roundup, Reddit thread or YouTube video turning up again and again for your questions. These are the pages that shape what AI says about your kind of product.

Expect each assistant to lean on different places. Winning on one does not mean winning on the others, so keep the sources separate per assistant. Also note any answer that names your brand but links to someone else's site. That tells you AI knows you exist but cannot find a good page of yours to quote.

Step 5: Keep a simple score

Give every run points: 3 for top 3, 2 for lower, 1 for link only and 0 for not there. Add them up and divide by the highest possible total. With 10 questions, 3 assistants and 2 runs each, that is 60 runs and a top score of 180. If you scored 27, your score is 15%.

Do not panic at a low number. Most stores start low, and anything under about 20% is common at first. The score is useful because you can repeat it with the same questions and see the trend. Also keep a per-question line, because the questions where rivals are named and you are not are your biggest openings.

Step 6: Repeat monthly and work on the gaps

Run the same questions once a month and compare. AI answers move week to week, and new mentions on other sites can take weeks to months to show up, so look at the trend over a few checks rather than one result. If you would rather not do this by hand, GEO's free AI Visibility Checker runs your product through ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity and shows who they pick instead.

Then act on what you found. Make sure your product pages put who each product is for and its key facts in the first lines. Check your robots.txt is not blocking the bots that matter. Pitch the writers of roundups that name your rivals but not you, honestly. Answer real questions on Reddit as yourself and say who you are. Fake reviews, posing as a customer, buying links and link swaps are against the platforms' rules and hurt your store.

Finally, ask new customers how they found you. Nigerian brand Hingees only learned a first-time order of over ₦250,000 came from a ChatGPT question because the shopper mentioned it on the confirmation call, TechCabal reported in October 2025.