The short answer

When an assistant searches the web, it often shows the pages it used. List those pages across all your answers, group them by website, and open the ones that come up most. Look for pages that name your competitors but not you. Those are the places where being added or corrected is most likely to help.

Why look at sources

When an assistant searches the web, the pages it shows are not only yours. They may be review sites, local directories, "best of" lists or industry blogs. You cannot edit most of them, but you can often ask for a correction, or supply a better fact.

This does not prove that appearing on a cited page will get you named. It gives you a short, evidence-based list of places to try first.

From your baseline sheet, copy every cited link. Many assistants show links beside or under the answer. Some answers show none. Record that too, since an answer with no sources is a different kind of answer.

Put each link on its own row with these columns:

answer id | question id | assistant | cited URL | domain | page title | names us? | competitors listed

Step 2: group them by domain

Take the domain from each URL, for instance reviews.example.org from https://reviews.example.org/best-tea/. Count how many times each domain appears. A simple spreadsheet pivot table will do.

You will usually see a short list at the top and a long tail of sites cited once. Pay attention to the top.

Step 3: open the top pages

For each of the ten most frequent domains, open one or two of the cited pages. Read them as a customer would. Ask:

  • Is this a list, a review, a directory entry, a news story or a forum thread?
  • Does it name us?
  • Does it name our competitors?
  • Is anything about us wrong or out of date?
  • Who owns it, and is there a way to contact them or submit a correction?

A tip for the tail: if five different pages from the same site are cited, count them as one domain for ranking, but keep the page list. It tells you which page type that site favours, such as "best of" lists or how-to guides.

Step 4: spot the gaps

Mark each page one of these ways:

  • Gap: names competitors, not you.
  • Wrong: names you, with a mistake.
  • Fine: names you correctly.
  • Closed: you cannot influence it, such as a large news site or a rival's own pages.

The gaps and the wrong entries are your list.

Step 5: prioritise

Score each gap with a simple three-way sort.

  1. How often it was cited. More citations means more answers touched.
  2. How easy it is to change. A directory where you can add a listing yourself beats a magazine you have no contact at.
  3. Whether it is relevant for real buyers. Skip anything you would not want to be listed on.

Pick the best three. A short plan you finish beats a long one you do not.

An outreach email you can copy

Adapt this for a page where you can ask for a fix or an addition. Use a real contact, keep it short, and never ask for anything you would not do yourself.

Subject: A correction for your page on loose-leaf tea shops

Hello,

I run Harbour Tea Co (example.com), a small online tea shop that sends
loose-leaf tea within the country.

Your page https://reviews.example.org/best-tea/ lists several shops
that do the same. We are not on it. We ship in 2 working days and have
a plain-leaf range. The details are at https://example.com/shipping.

If it fits your standards, could you consider adding us? If you would
rather not, no problem. Thanks for your time.

Best wishes,
A. Example

Do not offer payment for a place in an editorial list, and do not send the same message to hundreds of sites.

What to do on a page you can change

Do not just ask to be added. Make the entry easy to accept. Give a one-line description in plain words, your correct address or service area, a link to a page on your own site that states the facts, and one thing that is true of you and not of the others. It also saves the editor time, which can only help.

How to check it worked

  • Your sheet has a domain for every cited link.
  • You can name the ten most cited domains.
  • Each of those has a mark: gap, wrong, fine or closed.
  • You have three action items with a contact for each.

Check again in your next monthly snapshot. Look at whether the same sites are still cited, and whether you now appear on the ones you contacted.

What this won't do

The links shown may not be everything the assistant used. Answers vary from run to run (see the tracking guide), so the cited pages may too, and a source that appears once may not appear again.

Getting listed does not guarantee you will be recommended. It removes one reason you might be left out.

Our full audit does part of this for you: it collects the cited links, counts them by site, and flags cited pages that list competitors but not you, with a draft email.