How to write a comparison page AI engines cite

Write the comparison buyers actually ask for, answer it in the first two sentences, and put every product's facts in one table, each figure taken from that vendor's own page with the date you read it. Then say plainly where each rival wins.

That last step is what separates a comparison page from a sales page. In our scans, ChatGPT was the engine that cited our own comparison pages, and it cited them often.

What our scans show about comparison pages

The evidence comes from our study of 3,531 answers from seven engines to questions about AI visibility software, including how often they cited Cituna's own pages.

• ChatGPT reads vendors. All five of ChatGPT's most-cited sites belonged to companies selling in the category: otterly.ai, ahrefs.com, promptwatch.com, peec.ai and tryprofound.com. ChatGPT cited Cituna pages 164 times, in 132 of its 552 answers, and at least 78 of those citations went to comparison pages.
• Comparison pages drew their citations from ChatGPT. Among the 20 Cituna pages the engines cited most, the comparison pages drew 86 citations, 78 of them from ChatGPT. The comparison index drew 28, 25 of them from ChatGPT, and a page on AthenaHQ alternatives drew 23, all from ChatGPT.
• The pages that matched the questions' format drew the citations. Of the 22 questions we tracked at the end of the window, six asked for alternatives to a named product and none asked for a head-to-head between two products. Among those 20 pages, our alternatives pages drew 54 citations and our head-to-head pages drew four.
• The other six engines barely cited us at all. Perplexity, Gemini and Claude cited Cituna's pages 27 times between them, and Grok and Google's two engines never did. For those engines, third-party roundups carry more of the weight, as how to get into "best tools" roundups explains.

These are one vendor's pages in one category, so read them as a pattern, not a rule.

Pick the comparison buyers ask for

Comparison questions come in a few shapes:

• Alternatives: "[Rival] alternatives", "best alternative to [Rival]".
• Head to head: "[A] vs [B]".
• Constraint: "cheapest [category]", "[category] with an API".

Build the page for the shape your buyers use. Your Search Console queries show which shapes already bring people to you. In the Performance report, add a Queries filter, choose Custom (regex), and paste:

\b(alternatives?|vs|versus|compare|comparison)\b

Then write the page title in the buyer's own words. If they search "[Rival] alternatives", the title starts with "[Rival] alternatives". If the rival's name is also an everyday word or close to another product's name, add the category to the title. In our scans, "best Otterly AI alternative" drew 96 citations to roundups about Otter.ai, a transcription app.

Alternatives page or head-to-head page?

They answer different buyers, so they need different pages.

An alternatives page is for someone already looking past one product. They want a short list of other options and a reason to consider each, so the page covers several products and says what each does better or worse than the one they are leaving. Be specific about what they would give up.

A head-to-head page is for someone choosing between two named products. It covers two columns in depth, ends with which one fits which buyer, and does not need to mention anyone else.

Both follow the same rules below. Build the one your buyers' queries point to first, and add the other when the queries show demand for it.

Build the page step by step

1. Answer in the first two sentences. Name the options and which kind of buyer each one fits.
2. State your criteria at the top. Price at entry, features, limits: whatever you compared, say so before the table.
3. Use one table with the same columns for every product. The first column names the product.
4. Take each figure from the vendor's own page. Pricing pages, documentation and help centers, not review sites or other roundups. Record the date you read each one.
5. Write "not published" when a vendor does not say. Never fill a gap with a guess.
6. Say where each rival wins. Cheaper entry plan, a feature you lack, a better fit for a certain team.
7. Disclose that you sell one of the products, near the top, in plain words.
8. Keep the table as HTML text in the server's response. In our crawler test of nine pricing pages, one vendor's prices only arrived by JavaScript, and a crawler that runs no scripts saw plan names without numbers.
9. Recheck the figures on a schedule, and change the page's date only when a figure changes.

Here is the skeleton of the table:

<table>
  <caption>Entry plans as published on each vendor's own page, read [date]</caption>
  <tr><th>Product</th><th>Entry plan</th><th>Feature X</th><th>Where it wins</th></tr>
  <tr><td>[Your product]</td><td>[$N a month]</td><td>[Yes, from which plan]</td><td>[Your honest edge]</td></tr>
  <tr><td>[Rival A]</td><td>[$N a month]</td><td>Not published</td><td>[Its honest edge]</td></tr>
</table>

Our own comparison of nine AI visibility tools follows this pattern: criteria first, one table, "not published" where a vendor is silent, and a section on where the others win.

What Google's review guidance asks for

Google's guidance on writing high-quality reviews applies directly to comparison pages. It asks authors to:

• Share quantitative measurements of how each option performs.
• Explain what sets each option apart from its competitors.
• Cover comparable options, and say which is best for which uses.
• Discuss benefits and drawbacks, based on original research.
• Explain why something is the best, with first-hand evidence, when calling it the best.

Google's helpful content guidance adds a question worth asking of any comparison: does it leave readers feeling they need to search again to get better information? A page that hides the rivals' strengths fails that test, because the reader has to go and find them.

Keep it credible

• Do not import ratings. Google's review snippet guidelines say not to aggregate reviews or ratings from other websites.
• Do not give yourself stars. Google does not show review stars on Organization or LocalBusiness pages when the business controls the reviews about itself.
• Link to your sources. A reader can check a figure only if you show where it came from.

What to do first

• Filter your Search Console queries for alternatives and versus searches.
• Build or rewrite one page for the most common shape, titled in the buyer's words.
• Rebuild its table from each vendor's own pages, with the date read and "not published" for gaps.
• Add a section on where each rival wins.
• Ask the question in ChatGPT and the other engines, and record which pages they cite.