We have a serious problem. We rank top 10 in Google for our main keywords. We have strong domain authority. Our content is good. But when you ask ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Claude about our category - we literally don’t exist.
The audit results:
What we know:
What we don’t understand:
Feeling like we’re starting from scratch while competitors who started AI optimization earlier are capturing all the AI visibility.
I’ve helped 30+ companies recover from exactly this situation. Here’s the reality:
Why Google rankings don’t equal AI visibility:
| Signal | Google Weight | AI Weight |
|---|---|---|
| Backlinks | Very High | Low (0.218 correlation) |
| Web Mentions | Medium | Very High (0.664 correlation) |
| Content Structure | Medium | Very High |
| Entity Consistency | Low | Very High |
| Domain Authority | High | Medium |
| Content Freshness | Medium | High |
| Answer Format | Low | Very High |
You’ve been optimizing for the wrong signals.
The Recovery Roadmap:
Week 1-2: Foundation Audit
Week 3-6: Technical & Content Fixes
Week 7-12: Authority Building
Month 4-6: Optimization
Realistic timeline: First visibility improvements in 4-6 weeks. Meaningful recovery in 3-4 months.
This roadmap is exactly what worked for us.
Our recovery story:
The single biggest impact: Fixing entity consistency. Our company name was different across Wikidata, Crunchbase, LinkedIn, and our website. AI systems were treating us as multiple different entities.
Standardizing everything took 2 days. Visibility started improving within 3 weeks.
Before anything else, check your technical foundation:
Immediate audit items:
robots.txt - Check for:
User-agent: GPTBot
User-agent: PerplexityBot
User-agent: ClaudeBot
User-agent: anthropic-ai
If they’re blocked, that’s your problem.
Server logs - Look for:
Page speed - AI crawlers favor fast sites
Content accessibility
Mobile rendering
We discovered: Our robots.txt was blocking AI crawlers from a directive added years ago. Removed it, visibility started improving within 2 weeks.
Don’t do content work if technical foundation is broken.
Entity consistency was our breakthrough.
Where to audit:
What must be consistent:
What we found:
AI was essentially seeing 4 different companies.
Result of fixing: 4 weeks after standardizing everything, our AI visibility doubled. 8 weeks later, it had tripled.
Content structure for AI is different than for humans:
Before (narrative style): “In today’s evolving digital landscape, companies are increasingly finding that AI visibility has become a critical factor in their marketing success. When considering the various approaches to optimization…”
After (AI-friendly): “AI visibility measures how often your brand appears in AI-generated answers. The three key factors are: entity consistency, content structure, and web mentions.”
Key restructuring principles:
Answer-first paragraphs
Clear heading structure
Extractable content
Explicit definitions
Remove fluff
Restructured our top 15 pages. AI citation rate improved 45% in 6 weeks.
Web mentions are the most underrated factor.
Why mentions matter more than links for AI:
You can have 10,000 backlinks and still be invisible if no one mentions your brand in contexts AI can understand.
High-impact mention sources:
Our mention-building campaign:
Result: Zero mentions to 25+ high-quality mentions in 3 months. AI visibility: 5% to 35% in same period.
Mentions > Links for AI.
Recovery requires quick wins for momentum plus long-term building:
Week 1 Quick Wins:
Week 2-3 Quick Wins:
Month 2: Foundation Building
Month 3-4: Authority Building
Month 5-6: Optimization
The quick wins show leadership that progress is possible. The long-term work builds sustainable visibility.
You cannot recover what you don’t measure.
Set up tracking before starting recovery:
Baseline visibility audit
Weekly monitoring
Source tracking
Competitive tracking
Our tracking dashboard:
This data drives decisions. We stopped doing things that weren’t improving visibility and doubled down on what worked.
Specific content formats that accelerate recovery:
FAQ Pages (highest impact)
Comparison Pages
How-To Guides
Definition Pages
Glossary/Terms Pages
What doesn’t help:
Focus on creating content in formats AI can easily parse and cite.
Agency perspective from helping 50+ companies with recovery:
Common recovery mistakes:
Impatience - Expecting results in 2 weeks
Ignoring technical - Jumping to content
Copying competitors - Doing what they did
Broad focus - Trying to rank for everything
One-time effort - “We fixed it, we’re done”
What successful recoveries have in common:
This isn’t a quick fix. It’s a new discipline alongside traditional SEO.
Managing expectations is important:
What we saw in our recovery:
Week 2: Fixed technical issues - no visible change yet Week 4: Updated entity info - slight improvement (5% to 8%) Week 6: Restructured 10 pages - noticeable improvement (8% to 15%) Week 8: Started mention building - continued improvement (15% to 22%) Week 12: First major milestone (22% to 35%) Month 5: Strong visibility (35% to 48%) Month 8: Approaching competitors (48% to 58%)
Key insight: Results compound. Early weeks feel slow. Months 3-6 show acceleration if you’ve built the foundation properly.
Don’t give up at week 4 when nothing seems to be changing. The work compounds.
This thread saved us from panic mode. Here’s our recovery plan:
Week 1: Technical Audit
Week 2: Entity Fixes
Week 3-4: Content Quick Wins
Month 2: Deeper Content Work
Month 3-4: Authority Building
Key insight I’m taking: Google rankings and AI visibility are different games. We’ve been playing the wrong game for AI. Time to learn the new rules.
Thank you all - this roadmap gives us a real path forward.
Get personalized help from our team. We'll respond within 24 hours.
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