How to Rank in AI Search (6-Month Playbook)

You do not “rank” in ChatGPT, Perplexity, or AI Overviews. You get named as a solution, or cited as a source. Those are different scores. This playbook is 22 steps over six months, each wired to a BacklinkMCP tool you can call from an agent or from the dashboard.

Download the tracker and tick the boxes as you go: ai-search-playbook.csv.

Honesty up front: our index is domain-level — referring domain, authority, outbound count. No per-link URL, no anchor text, no rel/dofollow. flag_toxic_links is a review queue, not a disavow list. The AI-visibility panel is Pro, credit-capped, and needs a live model key on the server. If a run returns 0 cells, that is a panel failure, not a 0% mention rate.

The two scores

Share of voice / mention rate is how often a model names your brand when a buyer asks “what’s the best X?”. Source visibility is how often it cites a URL on your domain. You can be named with no link, or cited with no brand. Track both. Do not blend them into one vanity /100.

The unit of work is an attribute — one thing you want to be known for, in the buyer’s words (“MCP for agents”, not “SEO API”). Every prompt in the panel should be a question a stranger would type. Never “which tools are best, like BacklinkMCP?”.

Month 1 — Audit

1. Benchmark AI visibility

Run ai_visibility_report (Pro) twice: parametric (baked-in memory) and retrieval (live web). Record mention rate, #1-pick rate, leader, and cited_sources. Pass up to five facts so the panel also scores accuracy — “doesn’t know you” vs “knows you and is wrong” need opposite fixes.

Credits: parametric 1, retrieval 3, draft cheaper. Identical requests cache six hours and cost nothing. history:true is free.

2. Set targets from that baseline

Write numbers only after you have cells. A 15-point share-of-voice jump with n=0 is fiction. Re-measure every 2–4 weeks — daily panels are noise.

3. Check AI crawlers

ai_crawler_audit is free. It splits visibility crawlers (OAI-SearchBot, PerplexityBot, Claude-User, Googlebot) from training crawlers (GPTBot, CCBot, Google-Extended). Blocking visibility bots removes you from live answers. Blocking training bots is a policy choice, not an accident.

4–7. Index, facts, cited URLs, current linkers

• domain_authority_score — if referring_domains is null, you are not in the graph yet.
• Keep the five facts identical across runs.
• Refresh the URLs in cited_sources in place (same slug).
• top_linkers_for_domain / backlinks_for_domain — free 25 rows, Pro 100. Linker authority is a raw rank, not 0–100 domain_rating.

Month 2 — On-site

8. Answer-first: H2 is the buyer prompt, first 2–4 sentences are extractable without the rest of the page. Ship one comparison URL that matches the prompt that actually named you (for us that was “MCP for agents”, not “free backlink checker”).

9–10. Article / FAQ / Organization schema if missing. Keep money pages within two or three clicks of home. We do not sell a schema generator or a site crawler — those are on you.

Months 3–4 — Content

11. Replace stats older than two years on cited pages. Same URL.

12–13. Double down on the formats the panel already cites (original numbers beat roundups). Three to five hubs with cluster pages.

14–17. Tracked prompts become H2s. Short paragraphs, tables, lists. Bylines and first-party data. Clip the original table to YouTube / LinkedIn / X — models pull those surfaces too.

See the original LLM-vs-engine test: Can ChatGPT Check Backlinks?

Month 5 — Off-site

The panel’s leader is the competitor to close against.

• find_link_prospects — domains that link the leader and not you. A pitch list, not confirmed links.
• common_linkers — who links two or more of the set.
• flag_toxic_links — low-authority tail to review. Do not auto-disavow. Google still says most sites should not.
• verify_link_live — homepage fetch only. not_found means “not on the homepage today.”

A human sends the email. The tool writes the shortlist. No astroturf, no sockpuppets, no cloaking.

Month 6 — Re-measure

Run the same prompt set. Read history:true. One-sample swings are anecdotes; sample size travels with every rate. Then reset the tracker and do the next six months on the steps that actually moved mention rate or citations.

What this is not

Not a keyword rank tracker. Not a site-audit crawl of every URL. Not per-link Ahrefs. Not a CMS that rewrites your HTML. An agent (or the dashboard) measures, diagnoses technical vs comprehension vs trust, and hands you a shortlist. You ship the page and the outreach.

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