AEO ScannerReverse-engineering competitor wins in ChatGPT
When a competitor wins a query you should be winning, the reasons are usually knowable. Here's how to reverse-engineer their advantage.
If a competitor wins a query you should be winning, your instinct might be "they're bigger" or "they're SEO-juiced." Usually the actual reason is more specific and more fixable: they appear in a placement you don't, they have a comparison page you lack, or they own a search term you haven't claimed.
The reverse-engineering procedure
Step 1 — Capture the answer
For the query, look at the LLM's response. Note which competitors are mentioned, the order they appear in, and how each is described.
Step 2 — Inspect the citations
What URLs did the LLM cite? Group them by domain. The ones that appear in multiple queries for the same competitor are the load-bearing placements.
Step 3 — Read the citing pages
Visit each cited URL. What does it say about the competitor? Why does it position them favorably? Is it a listicle, a comparison, a directory entry, a review? Take notes on the angle each source uses.
Step 4 — Spot the pattern
Across the citations, what's the through-line? It might be:
- They're in the top 3 of a specific Forbes Advisor listicle.
- They have a comparison page that ranks page 1 for "X vs you."
- Their G2 listing has 4.7 stars with 800+ reviews.
- A specific Reddit thread keeps showing up that mentions them favorably.
Step 5 — Plan the counter
For each load-bearing placement, ask: can we get into it, displace them in it, or create a competing source?
A concrete example
One of our customers was losing the query "best project management tool for small teams" to a competitor. Reverse-engineering showed the citations were:
- Forbes Advisor (5 of 8 mentions cited this)
- Zapier's category page (3 of 8)
- A specific Reddit r/smallbusiness thread (2 of 8)
The competitor was in all three. Our customer was in zero. We pursued:
- Pitched the Forbes Advisor author with a specific differentiator. Got included on next refresh.
- Wrote a Zapier guest post.
- Engaged genuinely in the Reddit thread.
Six weeks later, visibility for that query went from 0% to 60%.
The data you need
Every AEO Scanner scan tracks competitor citations per query, so the "step 2" of the procedure is automated. The Fix List output for each losing query already includes the top cited sources for that competitor. The remaining work is the outreach.