Why shouldn't I just ask the AI about my own company by name?

Because it tells you almost nothing. Assistants can usually find a named business if asked directly. What matters commercially is whether you appear when someone asks a buying question without knowing you exist — that is the moment a recommendation is worth something.

Why do I get a different answer every time I ask?

Because assistants generate answers dynamically and take account of phrasing, location and session history. This is why we test three or four times with different wording rather than treating one answer as a verdict.

Which AI crawlers should I allow?

At minimum, OAI-SearchBot for ChatGPT search, PerplexityBot for Perplexity, and Google-Extended for Google's AI surfaces. Blocking them keeps you out of AI answers entirely. Allowing them is a business decision about visibility, and worth making deliberately rather than by accident.

Is Bing Webmaster Tools worth setting up if I only care about Google?

Yes, for one reason: it is the only free platform that reports how often your pages are cited as sources in AI answers. Even if Bing sends you little traffic, that report is the most concrete AI visibility measurement available to a South African business.

I ran the checks and I'm nowhere. How long does fixing it take?

Months, not weeks. Crawler access can be fixed in a day, but earning citations takes sustained content depth. In our documented case study the first sustained movement came after eight to nine months, then compounded quickly.

Can you run this check for me?

Yes, free. Send us your website address and we will run all five checks, tell you what we find, and show you where to begin — including if the honest answer is that your website needs basic fixes before AI SEO makes any sense.

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Free check · No tools required

How to check if AI mentions your business

Before you pay anyone to improve your AI visibility, find out where you actually stand. These five checks take about twenty minutes, need no software, and will tell you whether ChatGPT, Google's AI and Perplexity currently know your business exists. If the answer is no, our AI SEO services exist to fix exactly that.

How do I check whether AI mentions my business?

Ask each assistant a buying question in your industry — not your company name — and see whether you are named or cited. Repeat it three or four times with different phrasing, because answers vary between sessions. Then check three technical things: whether your robots.txt allows the AI crawlers, whether your analytics shows referrals tagged utm_source=chatgpt.com, and whether Bing Webmaster Tools reports AI citations for your site. Together those five checks give you an honest picture in about twenty minutes.

Time needed About 20 minutes

Five checks, done in order. No paid tools and no technical skill required for the first three.

What you need A browser and your analytics login

Free accounts on the assistants are enough. Bing Webmaster Tools is free to register if you have not already.

The five checks

Do these in order. Write down what you find.

The point is not to catch AI saying something nice about you. It is to find out whether it can see you at all.

Check 1 · 5 minutes Ask a buying question, not your brand name In ChatGPT, ask something a customer would ask — "who are the best [your service] companies in [your city]?" Do not ask about your company by name; that proves nothing. Note whether you are named, and whether your site appears as a cited source. Repeat three or four times with different phrasing, because answers vary between sessions.
Check 2 · 5 minutes Repeat it in Google AI Mode and Perplexity Run the same questions in Google's AI Mode and in Perplexity. Perplexity shows its sources most clearly, so it is the fastest way to see whose content is being used in your industry — including your competitors'.
Check 3 · 2 minutes Confirm the AI crawlers can reach you Visit yourdomain.co.za/robots.txt and look for anything blocking OAI-SearchBot, PerplexityBot or Google-Extended. If those are disallowed, you cannot be cited no matter how good your content is. This is the single most common problem we find, and it is usually accidental.
Check 4 · 3 minutes Look for AI referrals in your analytics In Google Analytics, check your referral sources for chatgpt.com and perplexity.ai. ChatGPT tags its outbound links with utm_source=chatgpt.com, so these visits are identifiable. Even a handful means assistants are already sending you people.
Check 5 · 5 minutes Read your AI citation report in Bing Webmaster Tools Bing Webmaster Tools is the only free platform that publishes how often your pages are cited as sources in AI answers, under AI Performance. Microsoft counts a citation as a URL displayed as a source in a supported AI answer — it is not a ranking, and it does not guarantee a visit. It is still the most concrete number available to anyone.

Reading the results

What your answers actually mean.

Named and cited in most tests

You are in good shape. The work now is holding the position and widening it to more of the questions your buyers ask.

Cited occasionally, inconsistently

The foundations are partly there. Usually this means one strong page is carrying you and the surrounding topic depth is missing.

Never named, but competitors are

The most common result. Your content is either unreadable to assistants, too thin to quote, or blocked. All three are fixable.

Crawlers blocked in robots.txt

Fix this before anything else. Until the crawlers can read your site, no amount of content work can make a difference.

The usual causes

Four reasons AI ignores a good business.

Almost every site we analyse fails on at least one of these.

The crawlers are blocked

Often by a security plugin or a robots.txt copied from somewhere else. Silent, invisible in normal search, and completely disqualifying for AI citation.

The answer is inside an image

Prices, comparisons and key facts saved as graphics. Beautiful for people, invisible to machines. We see this constantly on well-designed South African sites.

Nothing is directly answered

Pages that describe how passionate a business is, without ever stating what it does, where, for whom, or roughly what it costs. There is nothing there to quote.

One page, no depth

A single services page covering everything. Assistants favour sources with genuine depth on a subject, which is why connected clusters of pages outperform one long page.

Where to go next

If the check went badly, start here.

Service · ChatGPT ChatGPT visibility optimisation Getting named when your customers ask ChatGPT who to use. Service · Google Google AI Overviews & AI Mode Being cited in the answer box above the normal results. Case study · SA → USA From almost invisible to the AI's answer What it looks like when this work runs for 16 months, with the client reports published in full.

Straight answers

Questions about checking your AI visibility.

Why shouldn't I just ask the AI about my own company by name?: Because it tells you almost nothing. Assistants can usually find a named business if asked directly. What matters commercially is whether you appear when someone asks a buying question without knowing you exist — that is the moment a recommendation is worth something.
Why do I get a different answer every time I ask?: Because assistants generate answers dynamically and take account of phrasing, location and session history. This is why we test three or four times with different wording rather than treating one answer as a verdict.
Which AI crawlers should I allow?: At minimum, OAI-SearchBot for ChatGPT search, PerplexityBot for Perplexity, and Google-Extended for Google's AI surfaces. Blocking them keeps you out of AI answers entirely. Allowing them is a business decision about visibility, and worth making deliberately rather than by accident.
Is Bing Webmaster Tools worth setting up if I only care about Google?: Yes, for one reason: it is the only free platform that reports how often your pages are cited as sources in AI answers. Even if Bing sends you little traffic, that report is the most concrete AI visibility measurement available to a South African business.
I ran the checks and I'm nowhere. How long does fixing it take?: Months, not weeks. Crawler access can be fixed in a day, but earning citations takes sustained content depth. In our documented case study the first sustained movement came after eight to nine months, then compounded quickly.
Can you run this check for me?: Yes, free. Send us your website address and we will run all five checks, tell you what we find, and show you where to begin — including if the honest answer is that your website needs basic fixes before AI SEO makes any sense.

Would you rather we ran the check for you?

Send us your website address and we will run all five checks and report back — no cost and no obligation. If your site needs foundational work before AI SEO is worth paying for, we will say so.

Find out what AI says about your business — before your competitors do.

We will check crawler access, test the assistants, read your citation reports and tell you honestly where you stand.

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Written by Willem Nelson — Co-Owner, Business Developer and SEO Specialist at Bunnypants Studio. Twenty-two years in web design and WordPress, specialising in international and GEO-location SEO for South African businesses expanding into Africa and abroad.

Reviewed by: the Bunnypants SEO team
Published: 10 January 2026 · Last updated: 20 July 2026

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