Before you start
- Your Aha Studio accountSign in with your Aha Studio account. AI Search is part of your plan. Without a plan you can try the free demo.
- Your website domainThe domain the engines should cite, for example acme.com, and the name people know you by.
- The questions people askUp to 10 prompts a run (5 in your first 14 days), one per line. Or press Suggest prompts and pick from the list.
- Competitors (optional)Up to 5 competitor domains. Leave it empty and AI Search names the sites the engines cite most.
- Your own DataForSEO key (optional)The engines are asked through DataForSEO's AI Optimization API. On your plan the answers run on Aha Studio's DataForSEO account, out of your monthly included amount. If you save your own DataForSEO key under AI and data keys, they run on your key and DataForSEO bills you; the AI Optimization API must then be turned on for your DataForSEO account.
PART 01
Run a check
0 of 8 done- Open AI SearchAt aisearch.ahastudio.net, or press Start something new on your account page and choose AI search check.
- Add your businessYour business name and website domain under Your business. Add competitor domains if you know them, and pick the Search market. If you work for clients, pick who it is For and the Persona the plan is written in.
- Add your promptsType the questions people ask, one per line, or press Suggest prompts: questions from Google Suggest for your niche, plus prompts the AI writes. Each suggestion says where it came from. Tick the ones you want.
- Pick the enginesChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, Google AI Overview, Google AI Mode. The card shows how many answers the run asks for and what that uses of your monthly included amount (nothing when your own DataForSEO key is saved).
- Press Ask the enginesWatch each step: the answers come back prompt by prompt, then the pages are read and scored, then the plan is written. You can close the page; open the run from Your work to carry on.
- Read the resultsThe grid shows each prompt on each engine: Cited (your site is a source), Named (you are in the answer, not linked) or Not there. Open a cell for the answer and its sources. Share of voice shows how often you and each competitor appear, per engine.
- Work the planEach prompt has its actions, most important first, each with its effort, why, and the evidence. Write it in SEO Magnets opens SEO Magnets with the brief filled in. Places to get mentioned lists the actual pages the engines cited.
- Track itUnder Tracking, pick every 7 or every 30 days. Each check is compared with the last one, the trend is drawn per engine, and you get an email when something changed. Check again runs it now.
PART 02
The engines
ChatGPTChatGPT with web search. Asked through DataForSEO, with the model picked from DataForSEO's own list for that engine on the day (the model that answered is shown on each answer).
PerplexityPerplexity answers with sources. Asked through DataForSEO, with the model picked from DataForSEO's own list for that engine on the day (the model that answered is shown on each answer).
GeminiGemini with Google Search grounding. Asked through DataForSEO, with the model picked from DataForSEO's own list for that engine on the day (the model that answered is shown on each answer).
ClaudeClaude with web search. Asked through DataForSEO, with the model picked from DataForSEO's own list for that engine on the day (the model that answered is shown on each answer).
Google AI OverviewThe AI Overview on Google results. Asked through DataForSEO.
Google AI ModeGoogle AI Mode answers. Asked through DataForSEO.
PART 03
What the pages are checked for
Opens with a direct answer (answers the question)AI answers lift short passages that answer on their own; direct opening sentences get synthesised (Aleyda Solis checklist).
Says the question in its own words (answers the question)Passages are retrieved by how well they match the question asked (Aleyda Solis checklist, chunk-level retrieval).
Question-style subheadings (easy to lift passages from)Natural question and answer formats help AI systems lift a passage (Aleyda Solis checklist).
Clear sections (easy to lift passages from)Each passage should stand alone under its own heading (Aleyda Solis checklist).
Lists or steps (easy to lift passages from)Lists and steps are easy to quote as a whole (Aleyda Solis checklist, answer synthesis).
A comparison table (easy to lift passages from)Tables in HTML are machine readable (Aleyda Solis checklist, multimodal content).
An FAQ section (easy to lift passages from)Question and answer pairs match how people prompt (Aleyda Solis checklist).
Covers the topic in depth (answers the question)AI Mode fans one question out into many; broad and deep pages answer more of them (Aleyda Solis checklist, topical breadth).
Structured data (structured data)Structured data that matches the visible text is recommended; it is not required (Google, AI features and your website).
Says who is behind it (structured data)Authority signals include structured data about the organisation or author (Aleyda Solis checklist).
Updated in the last year (kept up to date)About three in four cited pages were updated within a year; freshness comes from maintaining pages (Seer Interactive, July 2026).
Shows a date (kept up to date)Cited pages are dated through schema, sitemaps or headers (Seer Interactive, July 2026).
Names an author or expert (evidence and expertise)Expert bylines are an authority signal (Aleyda Solis checklist).
Cites its sources (evidence and expertise)Citing sources was one of the methods that lifted visibility in generative answers (GEO, KDD 2024).
Has numbers and data points (evidence and expertise)Adding statistics lifted visibility in generative answers (GEO, KDD 2024).
Quotes an expert (evidence and expertise)Adding quotations lifted visibility in generative answers (GEO, KDD 2024).
Has its own data or tests (evidence and expertise)Accurate, verifiable claims make a page worth citing (Aleyda Solis checklist, citation worthiness).
Names the brand clearly (evidence and expertise)An answer can only name a business it can tell apart; entity clarity is part of being citable (Aleyda Solis checklist).
Readable without scripts (ai crawlers can read it)Keep important content in text; favour server-side rendering (Google; Aleyda Solis checklist).
AI search crawlers allowed (ai crawlers can read it)Keep crawling allowed in robots.txt and at the CDN (Google; Aleyda Solis checklist).
PART 04
Where the findings come from
Cited, named, not thereThe engine's own answer and the sources it listed, read the same way for every engine.
Share of voiceIn how many answers each business is cited or named, out of the answers that came back. Failed answers and searches with no AI answer are not counted, and the counts say so.
Page scoresThe cited pages and yours, read live and checked against the list above. A check the page could not be measured on is left out, never counted as a fail.
Domain RatingDomain Rating by Ahrefs, with your own Ahrefs key first when you saved one under AI and data keys. Shown for context only.
The summaryWritten by AI from the findings only, in your persona. It cannot add numbers: a sentence with a number that is not in the findings is dropped.
PART 05
Your limits
ON YOUR PLANUp to 30Runs a month, scheduled checks included, up to 10 prompts each.
FIRST 14 DAYS5 runsUp to 5 prompts each. See the refund policy.
FREE DEMO3 promptsOn Perplexity and Google AI Overview, once a day.
Every answer counts toward your plan's monthly amount, shared by all your AI workers; with your own DataForSEO key saved under AI and data keys, the answers run on your key instead. When DataForSEO cannot answer an engine and you saved your own AI key for it, that key stands in.
PART 06
If something goes wrong
Still stuck? Email support@anthonyhayes.me or open the help desk.
Ready to build?Add your business, your prompts and the engines, then press Ask the engines.Open AI Search