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AI Platform Queries — see your visibility

/agent-ready?tab=ai-platform-queries runs live test queries against ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI to measure whether your store gets cited.

How it works

  1. RankEngine generates 10-20 candidate queries from your product catalog (e.g. for a kids vitamin store: "best kids gummies", "iron supplement for toddlers", "kids vitamin reviews").
  2. Each query runs against:
    • ChatGPT-style answer engines with web search enabled
    • Perplexity (via Perplexity API)
    • Google AI (via the AI Overviews extraction)
  3. Each response is parsed for:
    • Mention — was your domain mentioned by name or URL?
    • Citation — was a direct link to your store in the answer?
    • Position — if multiple stores cited, where do you rank?

Results show in a table grouped by query.

What "good" looks like

  • Mention rate >= 30% — your domain shows up for 1 in 3 queries on the topic.
  • Citation rate >= 15% — direct linkable citations (the gold standard).
  • Top-3 position when cited — when AI does cite you, you're not buried.

Below those targets, the Action Items panel suggests specific fixes:

  • Missing llms.txt → enable Agent Ready
  • Sparse product descriptions → run Content Studio thin-content fixer
  • Weak schema.org coverage → enable structured data autopilot

Cost

Each AI Platform Query run hits external APIs. Cost: ~$0.005 per query. A 20-query sweep across all 3 platforms costs ~$0.30.

We cache results 7 days; rerun manually anytime via "Refresh Queries".

Limitations

  • AI search results are non-deterministic — same query can return different answers minute-to-minute.
  • Rate limits on the upstream APIs cap how often you can refresh.
  • Some answer engines don't expose programmable web-search APIs; RankEngine marks those as manually verifiable.

Trajectory tracking

Every visibility check writes to ai_visibility_snapshots. The Dashboard's AI Visibility card + the weekly digest email both surface 30-day trajectory off this data:

  • Binary flips — "+Gemini started mentioning you" or "an answer engine stopped mentioning you" (per-platform visible/not-visible change)
  • Mention frequency — "frequency: ChatGPT 1→8, Perplexity 2→5" (counts per-platform between consecutive snapshots). Catches growth that happens without a visibility flip: a platform that already mentioned you, now mentions you 8× as often.

Frequency growth is the highest-leverage AEO win: a 1→8 on ChatGPT means your brand has become the default answer for that topic, not just one of many.

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