--- title: How to compare AI mentions, search performance, and competitors with Search Console and Semrush description: 'You compare them topic by topic: an AI-answer check shows which brands ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Claude name, Search Console gives your own Google clicks and rankings, and Semrush shows how the named competitors perform in Google, so together they explain why a competitor gets recommended instead of you.' slug: /how-to/compare-ai-mentions-search-performance-and-competitors-with-search-console-semrush page_type: playbook lead_prompt: How do I compare my AI answer mentions with my search performance and my competitors using Search Console and Semrush? target_prompts: - How do I compare AI mentions, search performance, and competitors with Search Console, Semrush? entity: Kite category: AI marketing agent author: Devon Wells and Kite date_published: '2026-10-13' date_modified: '2026-10-13' related_use_cases: - /use-cases/ai-answer-visibility.md integrations: - name: Google Search Console page: /integrations/google-search-console.md - name: Semrush page: /integrations/semrush.md --- # Playbook # How to compare AI mentions, search performance, and competitors with Search Console and Semrush ## Key Takeaways - This comparison draws on three sources that each measure something different. AI answers show which brands get recommended, Search Console shows how your own site performs in Google, and Semrush shows how any other site performs in Google. - Neither Search Console nor Semrush's search reports tell you whether ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, or Claude mention you, so the AI-answer side has to be measured by asking those engines your buyers' questions. - The comparison is most useful when each source does only the job it's best at. Use Search Console for your own clicks and rankings, because they're Google's real numbers, and use Semrush for your competitors, whose numbers you can't see any other way. - Kite runs your buyers' questions through the four AI engines, reads your Search Console performance by query and page, and reads Semrush rankings, keyword gaps, and backlinks for the competitors the engines name instead of you. - You get a topic-by-topic diagnosis in Slack: who the engines recommend, how that competitor compares with you in Google, the most likely reason it wins, and the fix Kite recommends. ## How do I compare my AI answer mentions with my search performance and my competitors? You compare them one topic at a time, by putting three readings side by side for each question your buyers ask. The first reading is the AI answer itself: whether ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Claude mention your brand, which competitors they name instead, and which pages they cite. The second is your own search performance from Google Search Console. The third is the competitor's search performance from Semrush. Each tool fills a gap the others leave open. Google Search Console reports what really happened to your site in Google Search. For every query and page, it gives you clicks, impressions, click-through rate, and average position, and it keeps about sixteen months of history. Its numbers are exact, but they cover only the sites you've verified. You can't use it to look at a competitor. Semrush fills that hole. It estimates how any domain performs in Google, including the keywords it ranks for in the top 100 results, the pages that earn those rankings, and the sites that link to it. Semrush can also compare your domain with up to four others and sort the keywords into the ones you share, the ones only you hold, and the ones your competitors rank for while you don't. Its figures come from Semrush's own models rather than from Google, so they're estimates. Neither tool tells you what the AI engines say. Search Console counts appearances in Google's own AI Overviews and AI Mode, but nothing from ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, or Claude. To learn whether those engines recommend you, someone has to ask them the questions your buyers ask and record the answers. A good comparison ends in a reason, not a scoreboard. For each topic where a competitor gets recommended and you don't, it tells you whether that competitor beats you in Google, whether your own page is ranking but failing to get named, or whether the engines are leaning on someone else's roundup that leaves you out. It also keeps the sources from talking over each other. Semrush will estimate your own traffic too, but Search Console already has the real figure, so a careful comparison uses Search Console for you and saves Semrush for everyone else. Putting both numbers for your site in the same report only invites an argument about which one is right. Kite does this comparison for you. It measures the AI answers itself, reads Search Console and Semrush through your connected accounts, matches all three by topic, and tells you what each gap means and what to change. ## How to get started Start by asking Kite in Slack for the comparison: > "Compare how often AI answers mention us against our Search Console performance and our top competitors in Semrush. Tell me where competitors are winning and why." Kite is an AI marketer in your Slack. It researches your business, builds a growth strategy, and ships the work that brings you new customers. From that research, it already knows your category, your products, and your competitors, so it can propose the topics, buyer questions, and competitor domains to compare without a long brief. If your team already tracks a set of AI-answer questions, Kite uses them exactly as written. Confirm the list or adjust it, and Kite starts. You'll need two connections. Connect the Google account that has access to your Search Console property through OAuth, and Kite works with the properties that account can see. Connect Semrush by pasting an API key from your Semrush account, which needs API access. The AI-answer measurement is built into Kite, so that half of the job needs no extra account. ## How Kite builds the comparison ### Which topics, questions, and competitors? Kite starts by settling exactly what it's comparing, because a loose setup produces numbers that can't be lined up. The topics are the subjects your buyers ask about, such as the problem you solve or the category you sell in. For each topic, Kite writes the questions the way a buyer would type them and keeps your brand name out of them. A question that already names you will almost always get an answer that mentions you, which measures nothing. Kite builds the competitor list from two places. It starts with the competitors its research on your business already identified and any you name yourself. Then it asks Semrush for your competitors in organic search, which are the sites fighting you for the same keywords. Those are often not the companies your sales team would name. Kite can check the categories Semrush assigns to a suspected competitor's domain to confirm it really sells into your market, and it keeps the list short enough to compare side by side. ### Where does your brand appear in AI answers? Kite runs your buyers' questions through ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Claude and records what each engine says. For every answer, it notes whether your brand appears, which competitors appear, and which pages and domains the answer cites. Across all the questions, it measures your rank among the brands that came up and your share of voice against them. This step often changes the competitor list. When an engine keeps recommending a brand that wasn't on it, Kite adds that brand, because it's the one actually taking the recommendation. The cited pages matter just as much as the brand names. They're the specific pages Kite will examine in Semrush later, and they're often comparison pages, roundups, documentation, or community threads rather than a competitor's homepage. ### How is your own site doing in Google? Kite reads your Search Console performance to see how your own pages do on the same topics. It lists the verified properties on your Google account and picks the one that holds your real traffic, since a domain property covers every subdomain while a URL-prefix property covers only the address it names. Then it queries your search performance broken down by query, page, and date, reading clicks, impressions, click-through rate, and average position for each row. It can split the results by country and device when your markets differ. Kite groups your queries under the topics it measured, so the searches that mean the same thing as each AI question sit beside that question's answers. It compares the period you asked about with the one before it, and it leaves out the most recent two or three days, which Google hasn't finished processing. Kite reads average position as a trend rather than an exact rank. Google averages it across every time your page appeared, and a link inside an AI Overview takes the Overview's position. ### How do your competitors perform in Google? Kite turns to Semrush for the half of the picture Search Console can't show. It compares your domain with up to four competitors and pulls the keywords each of you ranks for, sorted into shared keywords, keywords only you hold, and gap keywords where competitors rank and you don't. For each competitor, it reads the organic pages that earn their rankings. For the keywords that matter most to a topic, it reads who holds Google's top results today and, when a recent change matters, who held them in an earlier month. Then Kite looks closely at the pages the AI engines cited. For each one, it reads the keywords that page ranks for, the backlinks and referring domains pointing at it, and the Authority Score Semrush gives it. It also reads the search volume and keyword difficulty for each topic's main keywords, which tells it how much demand is at stake and how hard the ground is to win. Semrush counts API usage in units, and Kite can check how many your account has left before it runs a large batch of reports. Kite reads its competitor numbers from Semrush and your own numbers from Search Console. When it needs to place you and a competitor in the same ranking, it uses Semrush's estimate of both so the comparison is like for like, and it says so in the report. ### Why does the competitor get recommended instead of you? Kite puts the three readings together for each topic and names the most likely reason the engines prefer someone else. The reason matters because each one calls for different work. Most topics fall into one of these patterns: - **The competitor outranks you in Google.** Semrush shows the competitor's page in the top results for the topic's keywords, while Search Console shows your page earning impressions at a low position or not appearing at all. The engines are drawing on what ranks, so the fix is a stronger page of your own. - **You rank, but the engines still name the competitor.** Search Console shows your page earning clicks near the top, yet the answers cite a competitor's comparison page or a third-party roundup. Kite reads the cited page and checks whether it answers the buyer's question more directly than yours does, and whether well-regarded sites link to it. - **The engines rely on someone else's list.** The cited pages belong to neither of you. They're reviews, roundups, or community discussions. Kite notes which sources recur across answers, because getting included in those pages is worth more here than any change to your own site. - **You have no page for the question.** Semrush lists the topic's keywords as gaps you don't rank for, and Search Console shows no impressions for them. The competitor wins because it's the only one answering, so the fix is a new page. Kite also flags topics where the engines name you and your competitors don't appear. Those show which of your pages carry real weight, so you know what to protect. ### What Kite reports back and does next When the comparison is done, Kite posts a summary in the Slack thread where you asked. It gives your share of voice and rank in AI answers, your Search Console clicks and impressions for the same period and how they changed, and the competitors who appear in your place. For each topic, it states the pattern it found, the pages behind it, and the fix it recommends, ordered by how much search demand the topic carries. If the findings need more room than a Slack message, Kite publishes them as a report with charts and tables at a shared link. From there, Kite can do the work it recommends. It writes the missing comparison or answer page, strengthens a page that ranks but isn't getting named, improves structured data, or drafts pitches to the sites the engines already cite. It publishes page changes on a site it hosts or through a supported CMS connection once you approve them. Afterward, it runs the same questions again and rereads Search Console once Google has caught up, so you can see whether the change worked. If you want the comparison every month, ask Kite to put it on a schedule, and each run posts in the same thread. ## What the finished work contains When Kite finishes, you have a diagnosis that shows, topic by topic, who the AI engines recommend, how that compares with Google, and what to do about each gap. - **The AI-answer standing.** For each question, whether ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Claude mention you, which competitors they name, and which pages they cite, plus your overall rank and share of voice. - **Your Google performance.** For the queries and pages that match each topic, your clicks, impressions, click-through rate, and average position from Search Console, with the change from the previous period. - **The competitor view.** For each competitor the engines name, the keywords it ranks for that you don't, the pages that earn its rankings, and the backlinks and Authority Score behind the pages the engines cite, all from Semrush. - **The reason for each gap.** Every topic labeled with the pattern Kite found, such as a competitor outranking you or the engines relying on a third-party roundup, with the evidence from each source beside it. - **The recommendations.** A specific fix for each gap, ordered by search demand, in the Slack thread or in a shared report your team can open without signing in. ## Common questions ### Why do Semrush and Search Console show different numbers for my site? They measure different things. Search Console reports the clicks and impressions Google actually recorded for your verified site. Semrush estimates rankings and traffic from its own keyword database and models, which lets it cover any domain but makes every figure an estimate. Both are useful, but for your own site, Search Console is the one to trust. ### Do I need Semrush for this comparison? No. Kite comes with built-in search data through DataForSEO, which covers keyword volume, rankings, search competitors, and backlinks without a separate subscription. Connect Semrush when your team already plans around its numbers, such as its keyword difficulty scores and Authority Score, and you want the comparison to use the same data your team sees. ### Can Kite track this comparison over time? Yes. Ask Kite to repeat it on a schedule, such as the first Monday of every month, and it keeps the same questions and competitors from one run to the next. That way, a change in the results reflects a change in the answers or the rankings rather than a change in what was measured. Search Console already holds about sixteen months of history, while the AI-answer history starts with Kite's first reading and grows with each run. ## Related pages - **Use case:** [Improve your visibility in AI answers](/use-cases/ai-answer-visibility.md) - **Use case:** Compare your Google rankings with your AI answer visibility (coming soon) - **Use case:** Track whether AI assistants recommend your brand (coming soon) - **Use case:** Benchmark your company against competitors (coming soon) - **Use case:** Track competitors' search rankings (coming soon) - **Use case:** Check a competitor's search traffic trend (coming soon) - **Use case:** Win comparison and alternative searches (coming soon) - **Integration:** [Google Search Console + Kite](/integrations/google-search-console.md) - **Integration:** [Semrush + Kite](/integrations/semrush.md)