Website owners can not track prompts because AI chatbots such as ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini do not share this information. User’s search queries are confidential.
Technically speaking, bots process prompts, then request pages with generic headers, only exposing the user-agent (eg: GPTBot). Headers do not show prompt details.
Artificial Prompt Tracking:
A wave of people selling “AI Optimization” marketing services are offering to track prompts. Some call it GEO (Generative Engine Optimization), AEO (Answer Engine Optimization), AIO (AI Optimization), LLMO (Large Language Model Optimization), GAIO (Generative AI Optimization), or something else.
I call the useless service most people are offering artificial prompt tracking, or synthetic prompt tracking.
Artificial prompt tracking is basically inventing your own prompt and then checking to see is a chatbot such as ChatGPT includes your website in the answers or not.
Example queries / prompts:
- Best Personal Injury Lawyer in Dallas, TX
- Experienced Dog Bite Lawyer in Fresno, CA
- Workers Compensation Lawyer for Construction Accident
Problems with Prompt Tracking:
Where to begin…
- Personalization. Gemini, for example, can look at your location, your browser activity, search history, Gmail messages and more before producing an answer.
- AI responses change. ChatGPT responses change if you’re logged in, logged out, on mobile, on desktop, using the web, using the app, etc. Even if you use the exact same method, and the exact same prompt, you’re very likely going to get difference responses for nearly every search.
- All models are different. Grok, Claude, Perplexity, Copilot, ChatGPT, etc are all different. Exactly which AI are you prompt tracking? All of them?
- AI chatbots are still in their infancy and change daily.
Is AI Even Sending Traffic?
It’s no secret that Google AI Overviews and other AI chatbots have slashed traffic to law firm’s websites. However, most of the traffic is for informational searches, not transactional.
Our studies conclude that in 2026 ChatGPT delivers 0.4% of traffic to attorney websites.
How To Show up in AI Prompts:
Since the 1990’s I have posted most of my articles in a question and answer format. Please take a look at the title of this article, and the first sentence. Bingo.
Having a wide variety of content prospective clients are asking, on a high ranking site, is the key to “ranking” in AI searches. And that is simply SEO & content. Hopefully you’ve already been doing a wonderful job of this for many years now.
But I want to show up for “Best Personal Injury Lawyer”!
If you understand ChatGPT market share for search is <1%, and you still want to focus on this, no worries, we have you covered.
Here are some things you can control:
- Directories: Advertise with the major directories which list the “best lawyers” in the area. It might run you around $10,000 per month, but you can be at the top of Justia, Super Lawyers, Lawyers.com and others if you pay monthly
- Listicles: It’s probably against Bar Rules and an FTC violation but you can also promote yourself in listicles for the ‘best lawyer in XYZ city”.
- Age: Being the oldest firm in your area.
- Settlements: Having the biggest settlements also help. If you can’t land a $50 million settlement today, you could list wins on a settlements & verdicts page.
- Reviews: Get reviews on Yelp, AVVO, BBB, Facebook, Justia, FindLaw.
How Do I Know What People are Prompting AI for?
There really aren’t any surprises here. You can look at Google Analytics and see what pages are getting referring traffic from misc bots. From there, you can take a guess at what the prompts are – it’s not that difficult.
I Want to Track Artificial Prompts:
If you really enjoy banging your head on the wall and have this much free time on your hands, I recommend manually prompting misc AI platforms to see how they respond. If you would like an even more useless solution, just do a search for “artificial prompt tracking” and you’ll see 100 companies online that I’ve never heard of. They’ll be delighted to take your money.
Our Advice: Just Do GOOD SEO.
We do provide SEO for personal injury law firms, and create unique content which ranks. If it ranks in Google, it probably has a good chance at showing up in the chatbots.
If you want to go a step further, we tell people “more content, in more places”, such as videos, social, being a guest podcasts, digital PR, etc.
In 2026, Google remains the undisputed leader, with search market share around 90%. And, Google is still growing in terms of daily volume. Yes, zero-click searches are a thing, but if someone still needs a lawyer after doing a quick search, they’re still going to hire one. In many cases, AI is simply filtering out people who don’t have a case.
