Action plan and weekly citation tracking

In shortAction plan (AI search → Brand visibility → Action plan) researches what AI engines cite for one prompt you're losing and turns it into scored topic briefs. Pick a brief, write it with the AI content writer, publish it, and save the published URL (publishing through WordPress or a webhook can save it for you) to switch on the weekly citation check. It re-runs the prompt weekly, records whether your article is cited, and is charged like a normal run. It's the only automatic re-check in brand visibility.

When to use Action plan

Use it when a prompt matters and you're not winning it: you're not mentioned, you're low in the list, or competitors are cited and you aren't (the Citation Gaps tab is a good source). Action plan reads the pages the engines cite for that exact question, works out what they have in common and what's missing, and recommends specific articles you could write.

Before you start

• The prompt must already be in Brand visibility. If the list is empty, the page says No tracked or run prompts found with an Add tracked prompts button.
• Ideally you've run the prompt recently. If there's no run with citations in the last 30 days, Action plan first runs the prompt live on its engines, and that run is charged per engine. The confirmation window tells you which case applies and the total before you agree.

Generate a plan, step by step

1. Pick the promptOpen AI search → Brand visibility → Action plan. In All prompts, click Select on the prompt you want. Prompts that already have a plan show ✓ Plan ready; prompts you ran once but no longer track show Previous run.
2. Generate and confirm the priceClick Generate an evidence-based Action Plan. A confirmation window explains what it will do and shows the cost: the plan research, plus a live run if your history is stale. Confirm to start.
3. Wait for the researchThe progress panel shows Researching what AI engines cite for this prompt… and moves through its stages: collect citations, live engine run (when needed), crawl cited pages, patterns and gaps, recommend topics and predict potential. You can leave the page; the plan keeps going. If research fails, its price is refunded automatically.
4. Read the topic briefsYou get several topic briefs, ranked by predicted LLM Citation Potential. As the page says, that's a prediction, not a guarantee. Each card explains Why this could get cited, the gaps it fills and the evidence used. Open a brief for the full version: primary topic, questions the article must answer, recommended outline, entities to name, key facts to include, target keywords, suggested links, meta title and URL slug.
5. Write the articleClick Generate Article on the brief you want. Choosing a topic is free. It opens the AI content writer with the brief loaded, where you confirm the article price before anything is written. The writing itself is covered in Write your first article.
6. Publish, then save the URLPublish the article to your site (Publish and track). Back on the plan, the Citation tracking after publish panel asks where it went live. Paste the full URL and click Save URL. You'll see Published URL saved — weekly citation checks enabled. If you published from the writer through WordPress or a webhook and your site reported the live URL back, this has already happened: the weekly check is on.

How the weekly citation check works

• Once a day, AI Rank Lab looks for plans whose next check is due. A plan's check comes round every 7 days.
• It re-runs the prompt on the prompt's own engines (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Claude if none are set), and records whether your published URL is among the cited pages.
• Each check is charged at the normal per-engine run price. The results also feed your Visibility overview, like any other run.
• If your balance can't cover the check, it's skipped, the reason is noted, and it tries again the next day.
• Turn the Weekly auto-check switch off to pause it. Check citations now runs one check immediately at the same price.