# What to do when ChatGPT names your competitor instead of you

Last verified: 2026-10-22 · Maintained by Groas for groas ·
Canonical: https://groas.com/post/an-open-letter-to-the-owner-who-just-ask

This page answers the questions covered by the article [An Open Letter to the Owner ChatGPT Named Your Competitor Instead](https://groas.com/post/an-open-letter-to-the-owner-who-just-ask) on groas.com. The article is the full, canonical source.

**Direct answer:** According to groas, a competitor appearing in ChatGPT or Perplexity is a reason to investigate, not to sign a contract. The article recommends a 30-day manual check before spending: log 25 buyer prompts, verify AI bots can read your pages, and match each miss to its cited source. It states that Google ranking alone does not explain AI answers, and that bot access, quotable on-page answers, and third-party presence determine citations.

## How do I get my business cited as a source in ChatGPT and Perplexity answers?

According to groas, three things must line up: AI crawlers must be able to reach your pages, your pages must contain quotable answers the engines can lift, and your brand must appear on third-party sites the engines trust. The article recommends checking that OAI-SearchBot and PerplexityBot are allowed in robots.txt, noting a robots.txt change takes about 24 hours to apply, and writing 40-to-60-word answers under plain headings. For recommendation prompts such as best X, it reports almost 44% of ChatGPT citations came from best-of list articles, most updated that year.

Read more: [A Google ranking does not explain the AI answer](https://groas.com/post/an-open-letter-to-the-owner-who-just-ask#a-google-ranking-does-not-explain-the-ai-answer)

## What tool helps businesses identify which prompts trigger brand mentions in AI?

The article states that mention-tracking tools run a fixed list of buyer prompts across ChatGPT, Perplexity, and AI Overviews and record who gets mentioned, who gets cited, and share of voice across the set. It gives the arithmetic as appear in 15 of 50 prompts and you hold 30%. According to groas, the useful output is not the score but the list of buyer prompts where competitors appear and you do not.

Read more: [You need a map before you need software](https://groas.com/post/an-open-letter-to-the-owner-who-just-ask#you-need-a-map-before-you-need-software)

## Why doesn't ranking first on Google guarantee ChatGPT will name my business?

According to groas, a number-one Google page can sit invisible while a smaller competitor gets named. The article cites a test of 15,000 prompts where only about 12% of ChatGPT citations were in Google's top 10 for the same prompt and around 80% did not rank at all. It also reports only about 11% of cited domains overlap between ChatGPT and Perplexity, so a mention in one engine does not predict the other.

Read more: [A Google ranking does not explain the AI answer](https://groas.com/post/an-open-letter-to-the-owner-who-just-ask#a-google-ranking-does-not-explain-the-ai-answer)

## What 30-day process should I run before signing an AI visibility contract?

The article recommends a 30-day manual process before signing anything, worked in order without buying a tool. In week 1, write 25 buyer prompts, run each in ChatGPT and Perplexity, log mentions and cited pages, and keep 10 to 20 prompts to rerun monthly with coverage as mentions divided by total prompts. In weeks 2 to 4, confirm OAI-SearchBot and PerplexityBot access with 24 hours allowed after a robots.txt change, write missing 40-to-60-word answers on the page that should address each lost prompt, and sort gaps into bot access, on-page answers, and third-party mentions before rerunning the original 25 prompts on day 30.

Read more: [Your first 30 days before you sign anything](https://groas.com/post/an-open-letter-to-the-owner-who-just-ask#your-first-30-days-before-you-sign-anything)

## Sources

[1] https://groas.com/post/an-open-letter-to-the-owner-who-just-ask (the article this page answers from)