Why does my competitor show up in ChatGPT and I don’t?
By The FirmCited team, BizLegal AI Last updated
What is your competitor doing differently?
Run the comparison: their name, address, and practice areas match everywhere models look; their site carries LegalService and FAQPage schema; their content answers questions (“What is my case worth?”) rather than declaring slogans (“Fighting for you since 1985”). Each factor compounds: models cite the source that is easiest to trust and quote.
Could it be your website platform?
Possibly. Many expensive law-firm sites render content with JavaScript that AI crawlers cannot execute, block GPTBot in robots.txt without knowing it, or bury substance in image-heavy brochureware. A USD 30,000 website can be structurally invisible to LLMs while a competitor’s modest but crawlable site gets every citation.
How do you close the gap?
Diagnose, then fix in priority order: an audit shows exactly which queries the competitor owns and which signals drive it. Then entity cleanup, schema, crawler access, and an /answers hub targeting the same queries. The gap took them months to build; with focused work it closes in one to two quarters.
| Signal | Cited competitor | Invisible firm |
|---|---|---|
| Entity/NAP consistency | Identical everywhere | Three name variants across directories |
| Schema markup | LegalService + FAQPage | None or broken |
| AI-crawler access | Open | GPTBot blocked or JS-only content |
| Content shape | Direct answers to client questions | Slogans and stock photos |
Related next step
- FirmCited Monitor
A monthly 25-prompt scan on up to 4 engines (ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews), delivered when at least 2 answer, with competitor share of voice. We email a private portal link. Self-serve, no calls.
See where your firm stands.
The USD 490 AI Visibility Audit answers this question about your firm, with verbatim engine results: 25 prompts, up to 4 engines, under 48 hours. Credits toward any install.