AI Visibility Tester

Measure how AI answer engines recommend your business.

Customers are increasingly asking AI assistants questions like:

• "What are the best dental clinics in Lagos?"
• "Where can I get affordable teeth whitening?"
• "Which accounting firm should I hire?"
• "Best restaurants near me?"

AI Visibility Tester shows whether your business appears in those answers — and how AI positions you compared to competitors.

Instead of measuring traditional search rankings, this Actor measures:

When customers ask AI who they should choose, does your business appear?

What this Actor does

Given:

• A business name
• A website
• A location
• Customer-style questions
• Optional competitors

The Actor queries AI answer engines and extracts structured visibility insights, measuring:

• ✅ Business mentions
• ✅ AI recommendations
• ✅ Ranking position (when explicitly listed)
• ✅ Website citations
• ✅ Competitors mentioned
• ✅ Aggregate visibility metrics

Example

Question: "What is the best dental clinic in Victoria Island for braces and dental implants?"

Business: Exclusive Smile Dental Clinic

AI response:

For braces and dental implants in Victoria Island, I'd start with Exclusive Smile Dental Clinic. Other options include Richmond Dental Clinic and The Ridge Dental Practice.

Output:

{
  "mentioned": true,
  "recommended": true,
  "position": 1,
  "cited": false,
  "competitors_mentioned": ["Richmond Dental Clinic", "The Ridge Dental Practice"]
}

Interpretation: AI recognizes and recommends the business, places it first when ranking explicitly, but did not directly cite the business website.

Supported AI engines

ChatGPT

Uses OpenAI's web-enabled models to evaluate how ChatGPT responds to customer-style questions. Measures mentions, recommendations, rankings, competitor visibility, and source usage.

Perplexity

Uses Perplexity's search-based AI responses. Measures mentions, recommendations, competitor comparisons, and citations.

Not currently supported: Google AI Overviews and Microsoft Copilot — neither exposes a public API that reliably reproduces its consumer AI search experience.

Understanding AI visibility

AI visibility is not the same as SEO ranking.

Traditional SEO asks: "Where does my website rank?" AI visibility asks: "When AI recommends businesses, does my business appear?"

A business can be recommended without being cited:

"Exclusive Smile Dental Clinic is a good option for cosmetic dentistry."

{ "mentioned": true, "recommended": true, "cited": false }

The AI knows and recommends the business but doesn't link directly to the website.

Or a business can be cited:

"According to Exclusive Smile Dental Clinic's website..."

{ "cited": true, "citation_url": "https://example.com" }

The business has earned a direct AI source reference.

Output

Each query × AI engine combination produces one visibility result:

{
  "query": "best dental clinics in Lagos",
  "engine": "chatgpt",
  "status": "success",
  "mentioned": true,
  "recommended": true,
  "position": null,
  "cited": false,
  "citation_url": null,
  "competitors_mentioned": ["Richmond Dental Clinic", "Schubbs Dental Clinic"],
  "raw_response_excerpt": "..."
}

Output fields

Field	Description
mentioned	Whether the business appears in the AI response at all.
recommended	Whether the AI presents the business as a suitable choice (e.g. "worth checking," "top choice," "highly regarded").
position	The business's position when the AI gives an explicit ordered ranking (e.g. a numbered list). null if the AI recommends businesses without ordering them.
cited	Whether the AI response cites the business's own website as a source. Verified against the business's actual domain — a directory or aggregator site mentioning the business doesn't count as a citation.
competitors_mentioned	Which of your declared competitors appeared in the response — useful for share-of-voice and AEO strategy.

Summary metrics

Metric	Meaning	Example
Mention rate	How often the business appears across all tested queries.	1.0 = mentioned in 100% of tests
Recommendation rate	How often AI recommends the business (not just mentions it).	0.83 = recommended in 83% of tests
Citation rate	How often AI cites the official website as a source.	0.25 = cited in 25% of tests
Average position	Average explicit ranking position, across only the queries where AI gave an ordered list.	1.5

How it works

Business + Customer Questions
            │
            ▼
   AI Search Engines
   (ChatGPT / Perplexity)
            │
            ▼
Structured Visibility Analysis
            │
            ▼
     Validation Layer
            │
            ▼
   AI Visibility Report

Validation & accuracy

AI responses can contain inconsistencies, so every result passes through a validation layer before being returned.

Citation validation — a citation only counts when the URL's domain matches the business's actual website.

• ✅ Counts: business website is https://example.com, citation is https://example.com/services
• ❌ Doesn't count: citation is https://directory.com/example-business

Logical validation — impossible combinations are corrected automatically. For example, a response claiming:

{ "mentioned": false, "recommended": true }

is invalid — a business can't be recommended without being mentioned — and is corrected before being returned.

Use cases

Local businesses — dental clinics, restaurants, lawyers, hotels, real estate companies, healthcare providers — understand whether AI recommends you at all.

AEO agencies — build AI visibility audits as a repeatable workflow:

Run audit → Find visibility gaps → Improve website/content → Monitor AI recommendation growth

Competitor research — discover which businesses AI recommends most, who shows up for your important queries, and where your business is missing.

Ongoing monitoring — run regularly to track AI recommendation changes, competitor movement, and citation growth over time.

Best practices

Use customer questions, not brand searches.

	Example
❌ Avoid	"Exclusive Smile Dental Clinic" (only tests brand recall)
✅ Good	"best dentist in Lagos"
✅✅ Better	"best dentist in Lagos for dental implants"

Test different customer intents:

• Discovery — "best dental clinics in Lagos"
• Service-specific — "best clinic for braces in Lagos"
• Price-focused — "affordable teeth whitening Lagos"
• Location-focused — "best dental clinic in Victoria Island"

Limitations

Engine	Status
ChatGPT	✅ Supported
Perplexity	✅ Supported
Google AI Overviews	❌ Not supported — no reliable public API
Microsoft Copilot	❌ Not supported — no reliable public API

Roadmap

• AI Visibility Score
• AI share-of-voice metrics
• Competitor intelligence
• AEO recommendations
• Content opportunity detection
• Automated client reports
• Historical dashboards
• Multi-location monitoring

About

Traditional SEO measures where you rank. AI visibility measures whether AI recommends you.

AI Visibility Tester helps businesses understand and improve their presence in the next generation of search.