AI Cite Who1. AI Cite Who: a direct route from buyer questions to page work
Choose AI Cite Who if you want to answer a practical website question: when an AI answer favors another option, what can we verify and improve on our own site? The workflow combines a free public website baseline with paid checks of selected buyer questions and one report of supported tasks. We recommend it first for owners who need to make and review changes, rather than commission a broad market research project.
You can generate questions from website context, add them manually or import an existing list. Review them before the audit so the test stays close to your buyers’ requirements. Recommendations, mentions, final citations and retrieved candidates remain distinct observations. The resulting work is tied to evidence and completion checks, giving the website maintainer something more concrete than an instruction to increase a visibility score.
2. Brand Radar has two paths; evaluate the right one
Ahrefs currently offers an AI Visibility Index for exploring pre-collected answers and Custom Prompts for questions you define.1 The index is useful for a different task from setting up a fresh campaign. If a niche buying situation is not well covered in the index, that does not establish that Brand Radar cannot track it. Its custom-question workflow specifically addresses questions and brands that may not already appear in broad search data.
For AI Cite Who, the starting point is your website and reviewed question set. We do not offer a comparable market-wide index or historical database. Our recommendation rests on the next part of the job: separate the observed answer outcomes, inspect relevant public evidence and put supported website or external work into one report. This is the difference to test if the research itself has not helped your team decide what to change.
3. Do not pay twice for an allowance you already have
The current Ahrefs page says paid Lite plans and above include a Custom Prompts quota, while larger packages can be purchased separately.12 Included with a paid plan does not mean a free standalone service. But for an existing subscriber it can reduce the incremental cost of testing a few questions. Check selected platforms, cadence and how checks are consumed before comparing a separate subscription.
AI Cite Who’s commercial case is the website audit and action workflow. Plus is $49.90 per month with 300 monthly credits, and Pro is $99.90 with 900, excluding tax. A standard audit of ten questions on three selected platforms costs 50 credits. Free website analysis can establish whether the baseline is useful before you buy recommendation checks. The purchase should earn its place by helping your team complete work, not by duplicating an existing allowance.
4. A buying requirement makes the page task easier to judge
Consider a hypothetical software vendor whose buyers need to transfer existing data without a long setup. A broad brand comparison may name the vendor, but the useful question is whether a migration-focused answer recommends it and what public evidence accompanies that result. Write the requirement into the question before running the audit. That avoids selecting flattering questions after you have seen the answers.
A supported task could be to clarify verified migration limits on an existing help page. If the limits are already clear, the report should not invent a missing page. If a competitor’s cited page merely contains a similar claim, treat that as something to inspect rather than proof it caused the recommendation. AI Cite Who keeps the observed gap, relevant evidence and practical next step connected so a colleague can review the reasoning.
- Use the same requirement in the question and in the page review.
- Verify product facts before turning a draft into public copy.
- Record the page change separately from later answer movement.
5. Keep the collection method with the result
Ahrefs’ help documentation describes its data sources and collection approach.2 A database observation, a custom tracked question and an API answer can differ in platform, location, date and sampling conditions. Matching brand names do not make them identical measurements. Export the records you are entitled to retain before switching, and keep the old metrics under their original definitions rather than relabeling them as a new tool’s score.
AI Cite Who samples selected, available ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity API search answers and preserves separate platform evidence. Failed or unverified checks remain unknown. Repeat a reviewed question set under comparable conditions to see variation, then judge the usefulness of the resulting tasks. Pro downloads structured findings and action content in HTML or Markdown; full provider responses remain in internal records.
6. Choose the alternative around the work after the chart
Semrush is another option when you want custom prompt tracking beside an existing SEO toolkit; its documentation describes the tracking workflow and report exports.3 That is relevant if consolidation is the purchase requirement. For owners prioritizing a free website baseline, selected-question evidence and grounded tasks, AI Cite Who is our first choice. Judge that recommendation by the work you can inspect and complete.
Start with one site and a small, relevant question set. Keep the original wording, confirm competitors and review the paid audit price. Complete one supported task before expanding the scope. We do not promise that a page change will produce a citation or recommendation. The value you can evaluate now is a clearer picture of the evidence and a more useful next step for your website.