I asked ChatGPT and Perplexity for the best providers in my category and my direct competitor comes up every time. I don't, ever. We're comparable in quality and I outrank them on plenty of Google terms. The AI readiness score in the app gave me a mediocre grade but I don't fully understand what to do about it. Where do I start?
This is the defining SEO problem of the moment, so you're asking the right question. Google ranking and AI citation are related but not the same game. To get cited:
/tools/ai-optimization. If GPTBot, ClaudeBot, or PerplexityBot are blocked, you're literally invisible to them regardless of your Google rank. Fix this first — it's binary.Start with #1 today; the readiness score should climb as you work down the list. Then use answer simulation to track whether you start appearing.
Number 1 was the gut-punch — PerplexityBot was blocked at the CDN level and I had no idea. Unblocked it and published llms.txt from the generator. Re-ran answer simulation a week later and I'm now showing up in about a third of the queries. From zero. This stuff is real.
Love to see it. From zero to a third in a week just from unblocking and cleaning up — that tells you how many businesses are accidentally invisible right now. Keep feeding the entity-presence side (reviews, comparisons, listicles) and that share will keep climbing. Nicely done.