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AI Shortlist Plays / Measure first

How many buyer questions do we need to test AI visibility properly?

Use a fixed panel of seven to fifteen buyer questions, not one. Cover the problem, the options, the comparison and the shortlist stages, keep the wording frozen, and re-run the same panel every month.

By ProlinkagePublished 8 November 2026Play 02 of 40 · Edition 1

Effort: 2 to 4 hours

Who does it: Marketing lead, with sales input

Best for: B2B firms of 20 to 500 people

Evidence: Strong (AirOps, 12 March 2026)

01 / WHY IT MATTERS

Why it matters.

AI engines do not search for the buyer’s question as typed. They break it into several shorter searches, called fan-out queries. AirOps reported on 12 March 2026 that 95% of ChatGPT’s fan-out queries had zero monthly search volume by traditional metrics. Keyword tools cannot tell you which questions matter, so you have to choose them from how buyers actually talk.

One question also hides most of the buying journey. A buyer asks about the problem first, then the options, then compares two names. A panel shows where you appear and where you drop out.

02 / SELF-CHECK

The 10-minute self-check.

List the questions you test today, then tick each stage that at least one question covers:

  • Problem: “Why is our pipeline from organic search falling?”
  • Options: “What are the ways to fix it, and what does each cost?”
  • Shortlist: “Which firms should we consider for this in our market?”
  • Comparison: “How does firm A compare with firm B?”
  • Proof: “Which firms have published results for companies like ours?”

Fewer than four stages covered means your panel is too narrow to trust.

03 / STEPS

Steps.

  1. Collect real phrasing from call notes, enquiry forms, sales emails and your Search Console queries.
  2. Write one or two questions per stage, seven to fifteen in total. Include at least three shortlist questions.
  3. Vary one thing at a time across the shortlist questions: market, company size or industry.
  4. Freeze the panel with a date. Changing the wording later breaks comparison, so add new questions instead of editing old ones.
  5. Run the whole panel on each engine you care about, and store the answers with the date.

Our AI visibility reporting uses a fixed panel built the same way.

04 / OUR OWN SITE

What we saw on prolinkage.com.

05 / MEASURE

How to measure it.

  • Named rate per stage: share of runs that name you, grouped by stage. Monthly.
  • Coverage: number of stages where you are named at least once. Quarterly.
  • Panel log: question, stage, date added. Never overwrite a row.
07 / SOURCES

Sources.

AI Shortlist Plays

The self-check shows what you can see yourself.

What the engines say across repeated runs, which sources they read and who they name instead is harder to see from inside. Our free AI Visibility Snapshot runs a sample of your buyers’ questions and is reviewed by a person.

More than a decade of experience, across businesses and markets.