Track your progress

The chain

In what order do results usually show up?

First the page is indexed, then an engine starts citing it, then your visibility on its question rises, and finally visits arrive. Watch each step in that order.

Step 1

How do you check that a page is indexed?

In Content History, each published article shows its Google and Bing status. Google is checked on day 1, day 3 and day 7 after publishing.

1. Open Content History (under Content Plan in the left menu).
2. Click Check indexing to refresh the Google status of your published articles.
3. If an article stays Not indexed, click Request indexing: it opens the page in your Search Console, where you click Request indexing.
4. Also check the Keyword, Difficulty and Volume columns to see what each article targets.

Google limits the number of inspection requests per property each day (Search Console Help, URL Inspection tool), so request indexing for your most important pages first. On Bing, submission is automatic once connected (Bing Webmaster Tools, URL submission).

Steps 2 and 3

How do you see that AI started citing you?

A win card at the top of the Overview celebrates each article an engine cites, and your visibility on that question moves at the next runs.

The card reads, for example, that ChatGPT cites your article as a source on a question, or that since your article an engine cites you on a question where you were absent before. Then open Prompts and look at that question: the engines that name you, and the change since the last check.

Give it several runs before you judge. Answers change from one run to the next, and Google notes that its AI surfaces may use different models and show different links (Google Search Central, AI features and your website).

Step 4

How do you read AI traffic in Analytics?

Connect Google Analytics in the Analytics page. You see sessions from AI assistants, the revenue they bring, and the pages that capture them.

1. Open Analytics, tab Google Analytics, and click Connect if needed.
2. Read AI-driven traffic: sessions where the source is an AI assistant such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot or Claude.
3. Look at Pages capturing AI traffic: where GEO turns into visits.
4. The Probable AI traffic card is an estimate of visits from AI that arrive without a source. It is labeled as an estimate, not a measurement.
5. Switch to the Google Search Console tab for impressions, clicks, CTR and average position.

“For example, users who return to your website from Google Search show as "google" in the Session source dimension.”

Analytics groups visits by their source (Google Analytics Help, Dimensions and metrics). When a visitor comes from an assistant that passes no source, the visit can look like direct traffic, which is why the estimate exists. Keep in mind that many people read the answer and never click: When a Google AI summary appears, people click a classic result in 8% of visits, against 15% without one, and click a link inside the summary in 1% of visits (Pew Research Center, 900 U.S. adults, July 2025). About 18% of the Google searches in that study showed an AI summary, and 88% of those summaries cited three or more sources. To build the same view inside GA4 itself, follow how to track AI traffic in GA4.

Monthly review

What should you check every month?

Thirty minutes once a month: compare visibility with last month, list the questions you won and lost, check indexing, and pick next month's actions.

1. Set the date range to Last 30 days and note Brand visibility and Share of voice, on all engines and per engine.
2. In Prompts, sort by visibility: list the questions you won and the ones you lost.
3. In Content History, check that last month's articles are indexed.
4. In Analytics, note AI-driven traffic and the top pages.
5. In the Action Plan, complete what is done and plan three new actions.

Tip. Change one thing at a time when you can. If you change your questions, your competitors and your pages in the same week, you cannot tell what worked.