Answer engine optimization

How to get cited by Perplexity using Claude

Perplexity does not recall your brand from memory. It retrieves a handful of pages and writes its answer from them, so getting cited means getting onto those pages, in a form it can lift. With Claude, the workflow is: find the buyer questions where Perplexity names a competitor instead of you, look at which URLs it keeps citing for those questions, and publish a page that out-answers them - leading with the answer, structured as a table or list, and honest about where competitors genuinely win. Then re-measure a few weeks later, because publishing without re-measuring is guessing.

How Perplexity actually decides who to name

Perplexity searches for essentially every question and shows its sources inline. That makes it the most transparent engine to optimise for, and the fastest to give feedback: the citations are right there, numbered, and you can see exactly which pages it read to answer your query.

What moves the number on Perplexity

1. 1Look at the numbered citations on the answer for your target question. That list IS your target list. Getting onto those specific pages, or out-answering them, is the entire job - and unlike the other engines, Perplexity shows you the list for free.
2. 2Write for extraction: a direct answer up top, then short sections with clear headers. Perplexity quotes tightly and attributes what it quotes.
3. 3Keep pages fresh. Perplexity leans on recency more visibly than the others; a 2023 comparison page loses to a 2026 one that says the same thing.

Doing it with Claude

An AI assistant that can search the web, read pages, and write long-form content. With the Fulcru skill installed, it runs the whole AEO loop conversationally.

1. 1Install the free `fulcru` Claude Skill. It teaches Claude the playbook: audit a domain, build the buyer question set, find who gets named instead of you, and write the page that closes the biggest gap.
2. 2Ask: "Audit example.com for AI search visibility." Claude fetches the site, works out what it actually sells and who its real competitors are, and writes 10-20 questions a buyer would ask an assistant *before they have heard of you* - which is the only kind of question worth testing.
3. 3Have Claude search each question and record who gets named and which URLs keep appearing. Those recurring URLs are the pages AI reads in your space, and they are the real target.
4. 4Pick the one gap with the highest buying intent that you could honestly win, and have Claude write the page: answer in the first 100 words, comparison table naming competitors honestly, specific steps with real numbers.
5. 5Publish it. Then re-run the same question set a few weeks later and compare. The comparison is the only thing that tells you it worked.

What this will not do

The part everyone skips

Re-measuring. A published page that you never check is a belief, not a result. Run the same question set again a few weeks later and compare: were you named in 2 of 10 answers before, and 5 of 10 after? That number is the only thing that tells you the work landed - and when it does not move, that is information too. It usually means the answer set is dominated by a source you have not gotten onto yet.