Question 1

What is AI visibility for a local business?

Accepted Answer

It’s how often AI assistants — ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, Claude, Perplexity — recommend or mention your business when someone nearby asks for the kind of work you do. Think of it as the AI-era version of “showing up in Google”: it’s measurable, and it’s becoming the first filter customers run before they ever read a review.

Question 2

Why does AI visibility matter if customers still read Google reviews?

Accepted Answer

Reviews still matter for the side-by-side comparison, but the shortlist itself is moving upstream. A homeowner now asks ChatGPT “who’s the best plumber near me for a slab leak” and never opens Google at all — your three reviews on a page they don’t reach are doing zero work for you. AI visibility is the layer where the shortlist gets decided.

Question 3

Are clicks from ChatGPT, Gemini or Copilot really visitors I can attribute?

Accepted Answer

Yes, but not through normal analytics. AI assistants tend to include your URL or your business name as a citation, so the path usually looks like: the user copies the URL from the chat, pastes it into their browser, and lands on your site as a “direct” visit. Citeward measures the upstream signal — whether the assistant even mentioned you — rather than waiting for an attribution click that may or may not arrive.

Question 4

How do AI assistants pick which local businesses to recommend?

Accepted Answer

They don’t pull live from Google Maps at query time. They draw on scraped and re-indexed descriptions of your business from across the web: your website, review aggregators, business directories, social profiles and credible third-party articles about you. The cleaner, more consistent and more frequently cited those descriptions are, the more confidently the assistant can name you.

Question 5

What sources do AI assistants read to decide who’s “the best plumber near me”?

Accepted Answer

Top-of-pile sources are your own website (services, location pages, about, contact), your Google Business Profile text, your Facebook and Instagram bios, third-party directories (Yelp, Angi, BBB, niche trade directories), local news and trade-press mentions, and review snippets that carry location context. The assistants cross-reference these and weigh sources that most agree on who you are and where you operate.

Question 6

How is AI-guided local search different from Google Maps ranking?

Accepted Answer

Google Maps ranking is proximity plus reviews plus a handful of explicit signals, and you can read the scoreboard. AI ranking is a synthesis, not a leaderboard — assistants combine dozens of independent descriptions of you into a “consensus” answer. A business can be #1 on Maps and never appear in ChatGPT, or appear consistently in AI without dominating Maps, because the two systems read different inputs.

Question 7

What is an AnswerRank score?

Accepted Answer

AnswerRank is Citeward’s 0–100 score that captures how often, how confidently and how prominently AI assistants mention your business when customers in your service area ask for the work you do. One number summarises three underlying signals: how often you appear, where you appear (top of the answer versus buried) and how specific the assistant’s description of you is.

Question 8

How is the AnswerRank score calculated, and how do I read the breakdown?

Accepted Answer

We run the same natural-language questions a real customer would ask — across service type, urgency, location — through current assistants and capture every mention of your business. The headline score combines mention rate (how often you show up), rank position (where you appear inside the answer) and specificity (whether you’re described by service, location, and a unique fact a reader could act on). The breakdown shows those three as separate bands so you know which one to fix first.

Question 9

What does a Citeward scan measure?

Accepted Answer

A scan runs the realistic questions a shopper in your market would type into an AI assistant — across your services, hours, location, and the language your customers actually use — then checks how often, where and how specifically your business appears in those answers. We also capture the sources the assistants leaned on so you can see what to fix, not just the symptom.

Question 10

What does the Citeward report show me after the scan finishes?

Accepted Answer

A plain-English breakdown: your headline AnswerRank score, the three bands behind it (mention rate, rank, specificity), the specific questions you appear for and the ones you don’t, the gaps the assistants flagged (missing service pages, inconsistent NAP, stale hours), and a prioritised list of concrete fixes you can act on this week.

Question 11

Do I need to give Citeward access to my accounts to run a scan?

Accepted Answer

No. A free Citeward scan only needs your business name, your website and the city or service area you cover. We never ask for logins to your Google Business Profile, your website CMS or any social account — the scan reads the same public sources the AI assistants read, so giving us passwords wouldn’t help and would just create needless risk.

AI visibility for local businesses, explained.

Curious what AI assistants say about your business?

What is AI visibilityWhat is AI visibility for a local business?

What is AI visibilityWhy does AI visibility matter if customers still read Google reviews?

What is AI visibilityAre clicks from ChatGPT, Gemini or Copilot really visitors I can attribute?

How assistants pick youHow do AI assistants pick which local businesses to recommend?

How assistants pick youWhat sources do AI assistants read to decide who’s “the best plumber near me”?

How assistants pick youHow is AI-guided local search different from Google Maps ranking?

AnswerRankWhat is an AnswerRank score?

AnswerRankHow is the AnswerRank score calculated, and how do I read the breakdown?

A Citeward scanWhat does a Citeward scan measure?

A Citeward scanWhat does the Citeward report show me after the scan finishes?

A Citeward scanDo I need to give Citeward access to my accounts to run a scan?

Curious what AI assistants say about your business?