How to get your product into "best tools" roundups

Find the roundups that AI engines already cite when your buyers ask their questions, check whether you are on each one, and give each author a specific, checkable reason to add you. In our scans of seven engines, "best tools" and "alternatives" lists took more than half of the citations that went to the 100 most-cited sites.

That makes a place on someone else's list one of the most valuable things a brand in this category can win. This guide covers how to find the right lists and how to ask.

Why roundups carry so much weight

The figures come from our study of what seven AI engines cite: 3,531 answers from ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, Grok, Google AI Overviews and Google AI Mode to questions about AI visibility software. Sites Cituna classed as competitors, and the engines' own pages, are left out. It is one category and one market, so treat the proportions as a strong signal rather than a law.

Two more details from the same data shape the job:

• Most lists were written by other companies. 46 of the 75 roundups sat on sites our classifier marked as software vendors, and they drew 1,445 of the 2,199 roundup citations. A vendor publishing a "best tools" list is a normal part of this market.
• Each engine has its own favorites. 30 of the 75 roundups were cited by only one of the seven engines. A list that matters for Perplexity may be invisible to ChatGPT.

Step 1: List the questions your buyers ask

Roundups are cited for specific questions, so start there. In our data, a list of the best Perplexity rank trackers drew 103 citations for "best Perplexity rank tracker" and "best tool to check Perplexity rankings". A ranking of AI visibility tools for developers by API access was cited 25 times for "AI visibility tool with an API for developers".

Write down the category, alternative, price and use-case questions a buyer asks before they know your name. How to choose the prompts to track covers building that list.

Step 2: Collect the roundups each engine cites

Ask each question in each engine you care about, and record every cited page that is a list. Note the engine, the question and the URL, because the same question produces different lists on different engines. Perplexity cited 20.2 third-party sources per answer in our scans and Gemini 3.5, so expect long lists of sources from some engines and short ones from others.

Repeat the questions over a few days. As our methodology notes, the same prompt asked twice can return different sources, and a list that appears once is weaker evidence than one that keeps coming back.

Step 3: Check whether you are on each list

Open every cited page and put it in one of three groups:

• Absent. You are not on the page. This is the real gap.
• Named without a link. The author knows you. Asking for a link is the smallest request you can make.
• Linked. Already won. Check that what it says about you is current.

Expect the first group to be large. When we ran this check for Cituna, it was absent from 89 of the 100 most-cited sites; the other 11 could not be read or had not been read yet.

Step 4: Check the list is about your category

Engines misread names. In our scans, Perplexity answered "best Profound alternative" by citing lists of alternative-rock bands 183 times, and Perplexity and Gemini answered "best Otterly AI alternative" with 96 citations to roundups about Otter.ai, a transcription app. No outreach fixes that. Put your category next to your name everywhere, and skip lists about a different subject.

Step 5: Make your facts easy to use

An author adding you needs your price, what you do, and how you differ, and so does the engine that later reads their list. In our test of nine AI visibility pricing pages, two gave a crawler no readable price at all. When your own page offers no readable number, any price an engine repeats has to come from someone else's page, as of whenever that page was written.

• Publish one entry price as HTML text, with the date you last changed it.
• Keep a short facts page: what the product does, for whom, plans, integrations and limits.
• Say where you are weaker as well as where you win, so the author can place you accurately.

Step 6: Pitch the author with a reason that fits their list

Google's guidance on writing reviews asks authors to explain why they call something the best, with first-hand evidence, and to make ranked lists useful enough to stand on their own. Help them meet that bar.

1. Read the list and find the angle it takes: cheapest, best for developers, best for agencies.
2. Write two or three sentences on why you fit that angle, with figures and links to your own pages.
3. Offer the evidence a reviewer needs, such as trial access or a demo account.
4. Send it to the named author, not a generic inbox.
5. Accept a no. A list that includes you against its own angle helps no one.

For "named without a link" pages, the request is one line: the page, the mention, and the URL you would like linked.

If money or products change hands

Some lists charge for placement. Google's spam policies treat buying links for ranking purposes as link spam, including paying for posts that contain links and sending someone a product in exchange for a post with a link. Google asks for paid links to be marked rel="sponsored". The US Federal Trade Commission says that a connection between an endorser and a marketer that readers would not expect, and that would affect how they judge the recommendation, should be disclosed clearly and conspicuously. Paid placement may still be worth it, but only on terms that disclose it.

Step 7: Recheck after each list changes

Roundups get updated, and engines change which ones they read. Rerun your questions after an author says they have updated a page, and on a regular schedule, and track the results by engine. How to measure AI share of voice covers the numbers to watch.

What to do first

• Ask your five most important buyer questions in each engine and list every roundup cited.
• Sort the roundups into absent, named without a link, and linked.
• Ask for a link on every page that already names you.
• Put your entry price in your pricing page's HTML, with a date.
• Pitch the three most-cited lists you are missing from, each with a reason that fits its angle.