How to monitor whether your brand appears in ChatGPT and Claude responses

Step 1: write two kinds of questions

Questions that use your name ("what is example.com", "who makes Example") test whether an engine can find you and what it says about you. Questions that do not use your name ("best invoicing software for freelancers") test whether an engine recommends you to someone who has never heard of you. These measure different things and move independently, so keep them in separate groups and never average them together.

Write the category questions the way your buyers phrase them, including the comparisons and "alternatives to" questions they really ask. Ten is enough to see a pattern; one is not.

Step 2: ask with web search on, several times each

Answers vary from one run to the next, so a single answer is an anecdote. Ask each question five times per engine in a fresh conversation, with web search on, so the engine reads current pages instead of answering from memory. If an answer did not search, keep it but count it apart: it tells you what the model remembers, not what it finds.

Step 3: keep every answer and its sources

Save the full text of each answer and the list of pages it cited. Every number you report later should trace back to answers you can show someone. A spreadsheet works: one row per answer, with the question, engine, date, run number, answer text and cited URLs.

Step 4: score three things separately

• Found by name: for the questions that use your name, did your own site appear among the sources?
• Described accurately: when the answer named you, were the facts right (what you do, who runs it, what it costs according to your own pricing page)? Check against your own published facts, not against memory.
• Recommended: for the category questions, did the answer name you as an option?

Report each as a count with its denominator ("31 of 40"), not as a single blended score.

Step 5: read the sources behind the category answers

For the category questions, list the pages the engines cited most often and check each one for your name. Those pages are what the recommendation is built from. If none of them mentions you, an answer built from them will not mention you either, however good your own site is.

Step 6: repeat monthly, same questions, same engines

Change nothing about the questions or the engines between months, or the months stop being comparable. Keep a separate, dated list of what you did (a page published, a listing created). Put the two side by side. That shows timing. It does not show cause, and it is worth saying so.