Getting started — your first AI search audit

In the next 5 minutes you will run your first AI search audit on LoudPixel and see exactly which AI engines mention your brand, which mention your competitors instead, and how much pipeline that gap costs you each month. By the end you will have a single number — your Citation Share Score — and a side-by-side comparison against one competitor.

You do not need to know anything about GEO (Generative Engine Optimization), AEO, or schema markup to follow this. We will explain each result as it appears.

Before you begin

You need three things:

1. A LoudPixel account (free tier covers this tutorial — no credit card).
2. Your domain (for example acme.com).
3. One competitor domain to benchmark against.

You will end up with: a Citation Share Score (0-100), a list of buyer-intent queries where AI engines cite either you or your competitor, and a dollar estimate of monthly pipeline tied to the gap.

Step 1 — Sign up

1. Go to https://loudpixel.ai and click Free scan in the top nav.
2. Enter your work email and pick a password (or use Google sign-in).
3. Confirm the email link.

Expected outcome: you land on the LoudPixel dashboard with one empty "Domains" panel and a green Add your first domain button.

If you do not get the email within a minute, check spam. If it is still missing, see How-to: Resend the welcome email (coming soon — for now, contact support@loudpixel.ai).

Step 2 — Add your domain

1. Click Add your first domain.
2. Type your root domain (no https://, no trailing slash — just acme.com).
3. Click Save domain.

Expected outcome: the domain shows up in the Domains panel with a Pending first audit status badge.

We do not require DNS verification for the first audit. You only need to verify ownership before exporting reports or connecting analytics.

Step 2a — Add a competitor

1. In the same panel, click + Competitor.
2. Add one competitor domain (pick the one you most often lose deals to).
3. Click Save.

Expected outcome: your competitor appears under your domain with a Tracking badge.

You can add up to two competitors on the free tier. The first audit only needs one.

Step 3 — Run your first audit

1. Click Run audit next to your domain.
2. In the modal, accept the default 20 buyer-intent queries (LoudPixel auto-generates these from your domain — for example, "best [your category] tool for [persona]").
3. Leave all six engines checked: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini, Grok, Mistral.
4. Click Start audit.

Expected outcome: a progress bar appears showing Querying engine 1 of 6…. The full audit takes 2-4 minutes depending on engine load. You will get an in-app notification when it finishes.

If a single engine times out (rare — usually Grok), the audit still completes with the remaining five. You can re-run that engine alone from the report page.

Step 4 — Read your results

When the audit finishes, click View report. The report has four sections, top to bottom.

Citation Share Score

A single number from 0 to 100. It is the percentage of audited AI answers that mention your domain at least once.

• 0-20: AI engines almost never mention you. Most leads in your category are going to a competitor.
• 21-50: You show up sometimes — usually for branded queries, rarely for category queries.
• 51-80: Strong presence on category queries.
• 81-100: You are the default answer in your category.

For most early-stage SaaS, the first audit lands between 5 and 25.

Engine-by-engine breakdown

A table showing how often each of the six engines cited you versus your competitor. Hover any cell to see the exact queries.

What to look for: an engine where your competitor is cited at 60%+ and you are at 0%. That is your fastest win — one engine, one content gap, one fix.

Buyer-intent queries

The 20 queries we ran, sorted by intent score. Each row shows: query text, who got cited (you / competitor / neither), and the AI's verbatim answer.

What to look for: queries where the engine cited a third party instead of either of you. Those are queries no one in your category has earned yet — easiest content wins.

Pipeline estimate

A dollar figure. It multiplies your category's average AI-referred session value by the citation gap you just measured. This is the rough monthly revenue moving through the answers you are not in.

This number is directional, not exact. Treat it as the size of the prize, not a forecast.

Next steps

You have your first audit. Three things you can do next, in order of impact:

1. Fix one query gap. Pick a query where you are missing and the answer cites a third-party listicle. How to get cited on a missed query (coming soon).
2. Set up the weekly digest. LoudPixel re-runs your audit every Monday and emails the diff. How to schedule the weekly digest (coming soon).
3. Understand the score in detail. Reference — Citation Share Score formula (coming soon).

If something on the report did not look right, see Concepts — How LoudPixel measures AI citations (coming soon) for the full methodology.