They search, read the top results, and write the answer from what those pages say. A company named on several of the fetched pages is named; one named on none is absent. Position follows the sources too: first in the roundup, first in the answer. There is no placement to buy and no registry to join.
Engine by engine
ChatGPT with web search and Perplexity fetch on every asking and assemble the list from the pages. Gemini with grounding draws on Google's results, so it follows Google's ranking. Google AI Overviews are written from ranked pages and are not shown for every query. Each is on its own page on this site.
What that means for the work
Be on the pages that get fetched for your questions. For most trades that is a review site, two or three roundups, and the threads. The report lists which domains were cited for your questions and how often; that list, top to bottom, is the plan.
The term behind it: Answer engine
A system that answers a question with a written answer rather than a list of links: ChatGPT with web search, Perplexity, Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode, Gemini with search grounding.
The report scores four: ChatGPT with web search, Perplexity, Gemini with Google Search grounding, and Google AI Overviews. Each is asked every question with the buyer's country set and scored separately, so the split between engines is visible. Answer engine, in full.
Read next
The four engines, one at a time · Grounded answer · Citation
Ask it about your own company
Your website, region and work email. The score appears in about three minutes, and the report is a link you keep.