Table of contents
The fastest way to find out: open ChatGPT (with search mode on), ask the exact questions your customers ask, and see which websites get cited in the answer — the whole thing takes under 5 minutes and costs nothing. This article shows you how to turn those 5 minutes into the rigorous measurement process that agencies use.
The 5-step AI visibility check
Follow the steps in order; the first run takes about 1–2 hours for 10–20 questions across 3 platforms:
- List 10–20 questions customers frequently ask about your industry. The best sources: messages customers send to your fanpage, the questions sales gets asked most, comments under your posts. Real customer questions always beat the questions you think customers would ask.
- Ask each one on ChatGPT (with search on), Perplexity, and Gemini. Use your customers' exact phrasing — including blunt fragments like "which rolling suitcase is durable".
- Record which sources get cited. Build a simple table: one row per question, one column per platform, each cell listing the websites mentioned.
- Note the position and context in which your brand appears. Being mentioned is one thing; being mentioned as the primary source, with accurate information is another.
- Repeat monthly to track the trend. Keep the question set and measurement conditions fixed so the numbers stay comparable month to month.
What if your website is not being cited?
Don't panic — most Vietnamese websites are in this situation. The three most common causes, ranked by how often we see them in audits:
- Missing schema (structured data): your website is a block of text whose meaning AI has to guess. Schema tells the machine outright: what kind of business this is, what the article is about, which question is answered where. The simplest starting point is FAQ schema.
- Content that is not answer-first: the page opens with "Welcome to our website..." instead of answering the question directly. AI quotes passages that answer directly — if the entire page has no such passage, there is nothing to quote.
- Lack of credibility signals: business information that is inconsistent across the web, with no industry sites mentioning you. AI is reluctant to cite a source it cannot verify.
All three are fixable, and our Starter package tackles exactly these three things in the first 3 months.
Automated checking tool
If you want a quick technical check before measuring citations manually, we built a free AEO checker tool: paste in a URL and the tool scores your website on 8 criteria — schema, meta description, question-style headings, FAQ, semantic structure — with specific improvement suggestions for each item that falls short. It runs in about 10 seconds and requires no email.
A good technical score does not guarantee you get cited, but a poor technical score all but guarantees you don't — so fix the foundation first, then measure citations monthly with the 5-step process above.
Frequently asked questions
ChatGPT gives different results every time — how do I measure that?
It is true that AI answers have some randomness. The fix: use a large enough question set (10–20 questions), ask in a fresh session with no prior context loaded, and look at the monthly trend rather than individual runs. Being cited on 7 of 20 questions this month versus 3 of 20 last month is a real signal.
Can I run the check with a free ChatGPT account?
Yes. The free tiers of ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity are all sufficient for basic citation checking. What matters is turning on the search feature when you ask, because non-search mode answers from background knowledge and rarely cites sources.
No AI mentions my website at all — is it a lost cause?
No. Most Vietnamese websites are not yet cited by AI simply because nobody in the niche has optimized yet — which means the opportunity is wide open. Start with the three most common causes: missing schema, content that is not answer-first, and a lack of credibility signals.
AEO Saigon
An Answer Engine Optimization agency in Ho Chi Minh City — helping business websites get cited by AI. About AEO Saigon →
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