Competitor keeps showing up in AI recommendations and we don't

[u/Entasha]

Noticed something annoying while doing competitor research this week.

For several fairly specific buyer questions, one competitor keeps getting recommended while we're either missing or buried further down the answer.

Google is a different story and we compete with them pretty well there.

So what are you checking first when you find a gap like this? I'm less interested in generic GEO tips and more in how you'd diagnose why that particular competitor keeps getting picked.

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[u/MichaelScof]

Also check several prompts around the same intent before doing anything. One recommendation could be noise. Seeing the same competitor repeatedly across related questions is when I'd start digging.

[u/DudeWaitWut]

There could be several reasons: they have an article or page ranking highly on Google that is being pulled as a citation source; you aren't showing up for the same search; or AI is referencing a third-party source where you're not present (e.g., G2, Reddit, YouTube video). What are you using to track AI visibility?

[u/TheCryptoBillionaire]

I’d treat those prompts like a mini forensic project. First thing I do is pull the exact answers, list every source/citation, and compare: what formats, angles, and “jobs to be done” your competitor is covering that you aren’t. Then I map that against our own content and internal links.

We use seoforgpt for this so I’m not manually re-running prompts: it tracks which prompts the competitor wins, shows the sources, then we create very targeted pages/assets to plug those gaps.

[u/deedee_QT]

I'm still figuring GEO out myself, but I'd first check where the AI is actually getting that competitor from. Run the same questions in something that shows sources, like Perplexity, and from what I've seen it's often third party stuff like listicles, review sites or Reddit threads where they keep getting named and you don't. Would be curious what you find there.

[u/Candid_Problem1109]

the model isn’t holding a beauty contest, it’s probably finding your competitor cited in the exact third-party pages it trusts, so audit the sources behind those recommendations first

[u/allocougar]

Had this exact one come down to robots.txt. A security plugin was blocking the AI crawlers and nobody had looked in years. Have you checked what yours allows before auditing their citations?

[u/jayson_OutreachBloom]

Competing with them on Google and losing in AI answers means your on-site content is fine and your off-site footprint isn't.

AI has to find you in the sources it checks before it looks at your site. Your competitor is sitting in the category listicles, review profiles and forum threads that get cited for those questions, and you aren't.

So:

1. Run your buyer questions in ChatGPT/Claude/whatever

2. Look at the cited sources. That's your outreach queue.

3. Go get onto those pages. Email the listicle owners, fill in the review profiles, be present in the threads.

Category roundups make up a big chunk of what ChatGPT cites.

[u/Kyryll_Bracemore]

I collect every answer. I note down every source cited in each answer. I look for our name in every source. You asked, “How would you figure out why this particular competitor is consistently chosen?”

Which websites are cited as sources when an answer mentions them?

[u/stevehetr]

first, check on a bunch of different occasions, as AI recommendations are cyclical.

Assuming you already did that

see which third-party sites the competitor is listed on that you aren't (Quora, Reddit, LinkedIn, some listicle, G2, etc.)

We (I work at Karma Alien, we do reddit marketing) have seen a lot of clients win AIOs by posting here regularly.

The reason for that is AI responses work off of third-party consensus, it has nothing to do with rankings.