Is there a free way to check ChatGPT visibility?

Yes. Asking the assistant your customers' questions by hand costs nothing and is the most honest starting point. It becomes impractical once you want the same questions asked repeatedly across several engines with the answers kept and dated, which is the point at which a tool earns its price.

Why does ChatGPT name a different business each time I ask?

Because answer engines sample their responses and their sources change underneath them. Consecutive answers to an identical prompt can differ. This is why a fixed question set asked on a schedule is the only reliable measurement, and why a single test proves very little.

Does being in Google's results mean AI assistants will find me?

Often, but not reliably. Some assistants search the live web, some answer from training data, and some do both. Ranking well in Google helps because several engines retrieve from a search index, but it is not a guarantee of being named or cited.

How to check if ChatGPT mentions your website

How do I check if ChatGPT mentions my website?

Ask the assistant the questions your customers ask, not your brand name, then record which businesses it names and which pages it links. Searching your own name overstates your visibility. Repeat the same question set on a fixed schedule, because answers change daily and one test on one day proves nothing.

Ask the question a customer would ask

The commonest mistake is typing your own company name into ChatGPT and feeling reassured when it describes you correctly. That tells you the model has heard of you. It does not tell you whether you get recommended to somebody who has never heard of you, which is the only question that matters commercially.

Write down the ten questions a customer asks before they buy. Not "what is Sondavo", but "who is the best magento host in the uk", "how do I find out why my traffic dropped", "cheapest way to fix site speed". Those are the prompts where a name is worth money.

Record two different things: mentions and citations

A mention is the assistant naming your business in its text. A citation is the assistant linking your page as the source it used. They are not the same, and the difference matters: a citation sends a visitor, a mention builds recognition without a click.

Keep both. A brand that is mentioned often but never cited has a recognition problem it can live with. A brand that is cited often but never named has an authority problem worth fixing.

Test on a schedule, because the answer moves

Answer engines are not stable the way a Google ranking is. The same prompt can return different businesses on consecutive days, because the model samples, the retrieval index updates, and the live web underneath it changes.

One test on one day is an anecdote. The same fixed set of questions, asked on the same schedule, stored with dates, is evidence. That is the only way to tell a real decline from a bad afternoon.

When it names a rival instead of you

Look at what the assistant cited when it answered. Usually it will be a page that answers the question directly and plainly: a comparison, a guide, a specification. If a rival owns that page and you do not have one, the fix is to build one, not to add your brand name to a page you already have.

If it cited a third-party page, a directory, a roundup or a review site, that is an outreach job rather than a writing job. Being included on the page the engine already trusts is faster than persuading it to trust yours.

What Sondavo does here

Sondavo asks the engines your questions on a schedule and stores every answer verbatim with the date it was given, so you can see the wording that named a rival rather than a score that hides it. Each to-do is labelled owned or earned: owned means improve or create a page you control, earned means a third-party page has to cite you.

Where we cannot check something, we say so rather than filling the gap with an estimate.

Common questions

Is there a free way to check ChatGPT visibility?: Yes. Asking the assistant your customers' questions by hand costs nothing and is the most honest starting point. It becomes impractical once you want the same questions asked repeatedly across several engines with the answers kept and dated, which is the point at which a tool earns its price.
Why does ChatGPT name a different business each time I ask?: Because answer engines sample their responses and their sources change underneath them. Consecutive answers to an identical prompt can differ. This is why a fixed question set asked on a schedule is the only reliable measurement, and why a single test proves very little.
Does being in Google's results mean AI assistants will find me?: Often, but not reliably. Some assistants search the live web, some answer from training data, and some do both. Ranking well in Google helps because several engines retrieve from a search index, but it is not a guarantee of being named or cited.

Sources

Written by the Sondavo team. When we mention a Sondavo feature, it is one you can use today, not one we are planning.

Try it on your own site

Sondavo runs a free check on any website: the searches you already appear for, what is rising toward page one, and whether AI assistants can read and cite you. No account needed for the first check.

Check your site free See pricing