How do you check what ChatGPT and Google AI say about your business?
Write down 10 to 25 questions your customers ask before they get in touch, put each one to ChatGPT (with search on) and to Google more than once, and record two things every time: whether your site is linked as a source, and whether your business is named. Repeat on the same questions every month.
By Jarek Piotrowski · Last updated
Is my business showing in ChatGPT? The five-minute version
Open ChatGPT, turn search on, and ask the question a new customer would ask, with your suburb or city, for example "who is a good family lawyer in Penrith" or "how much is a physio appointment in Hobart". Look for two things: does the answer name your business, and does it link your site among its sources. Ask again on another day before drawing a conclusion, because answers change from run to run.
If you're absent, start with whether ChatGPT's search crawler can read your site (the free AI crawler checker tells you in about 10 seconds), then read the usual reasons ChatGPT doesn't mention a business. For Google, how pages get into AI Overviews and AI Mode.
The five steps
- List the questions. Write down 10 to 25 questions your customers ask before they get in touch, in their words, and add the searches you most want to be found for.
- Ask each one more than once. Put each question to ChatGPT with search on, and search it on Google to see whether an AI Overview appears. AI answers change from run to run, so ask each question at least twice on different days.
- Record two things. For each answer, record whether your site is linked as a source and whether your business is named. They are different results and they can move in different directions.
- Note who is cited instead. Write down the sites the answers link instead of yours. Those are the pages you are competing with, and they show what the answer engine wanted.
- Repeat on the same questions. Run the same list again every month, so you compare like with like.
Why linked and named are counted separately
They can move in opposite directions. For one client firm, ChatGPT linked its pages as a source on 8 of 25 tracked questions on 22 Sep 2026, up from 0 on 10 May 2026, while the share of its answers that named the firm fell from 58% to 33% over the same scans. Counting only one would have told half the story.
Doing it at scale
By hand this takes an afternoon a month. I run it with tools: Google AI Overview checks through DataForSEO's results API (three runs per question, Australian location) and ChatGPT checks through Mangools AI Search Watcher (two samples per question). The AI Visibility Audit does this for 25 of your questions and three competitors.
Do not forget Google itself
AI answers are only part of it. Search Console shows how often Google showed your pages (impressions) and how often people clicked. For the same firm, clicks went from 32 in the 28 days to 7 May 2026 to 870 in the 28 days 23 Sep–20 Oct 2026 (Search Console, date view).
Questions people ask
Is my business showing in ChatGPT if it is linked but not named?
It is showing as a source, which can bring visits, but the answer itself is not putting your name in front of the reader. Count linked and named separately.
Do I need a paid tool to check?
No. By hand, 10 to 25 questions take an afternoon a month. Tools help when you want more runs per question or more questions.
Should I check while logged in to my own account?
If ChatGPT's memory is on, answers can draw on what you have told it before, so a fresh chat with search on, or a different account, gives a fairer picture of what a stranger sees.
The AI Visibility Audit runs this check on 25 of your questions and three competitors, three runs each. Want this checked every week instead of once? See the dashboard (A$99, then A$29/month). Checking for clients as an agency? White-label AI visibility reporting.
Jarek Piotrowski runs LayerOps from Canberra: fast, lead-ready websites, and SEO and AI-answer visibility for professional and service businesses Australia-wide.