Sample practice audit
How AI engines evaluate a developer tool — Checkly baseline
A founder-readable look at whether AI assistants are likely to name Checkly when buyers ask for tools — with honest labels on what was measured vs inferred.
What this sample actually used
No invented multi-engine harness. Sources below are the ones behind the tables.
- (A) Direct site checks — curl of robots.txt,
/llms.txt, About/FAQ/vs URLs, homepage JSON-LD (Sep 19, 2026). - (B) Third-party measured naming — Glotier Aug 3, 2026 study of who ChatGPT + Gemini name on classic uptime prompts (6 prompts); Reditus Aug 2026 ChatGPT citation maps for uptime software.
- (C) Inferred from public 2026 roundups — “best API / synthetic / Playwright monitoring” articles that engines often retrieve. Labeled inferred, not live chat transcripts.
We did not paste all five Checkly buyer prompts into a personal ChatGPT / Perplexity / AI Overviews login for this practice draft. Where a cell says “inferred,” treat it as retrieval context — not a screenshot claim.
Buyer prompts · outcome · engine / source
Win / tie / lose here means “likely named early / shared shortlist / usually absent” for that prompt cluster — not a citation guarantee.
| # | Buyer prompt | Outcome | Assistants / source | Who tends to get named |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | “best API monitoring tools for startups” | Tie / Partial | Inferred: 2026 API/synthetics roundups + Reditus cites checklyhq.com | Checkly alongside Datadog Synthetics, Postman Monitors, UptimeRobot, Better Stack, Hyperping |
| 2 | “best synthetic monitoring for developers” | Tie / leaning | Inferred: public 2026 synthetics / Playwright roundups | Checkly appears when wording matches “synthetics / monitoring as code”; still shares mindshare |
| 3 | “Checkly vs Datadog” | Partial | Direct: site check · Inferred: third-party compare content | Buyers hunt “vs” pages; Checkly’s /vs/datadog was 404 in our curl — third parties own much of the story |
| 4 | “alternatives to Pingdom for API checks” | Tie / Partial | Inferred: alternatives listicles + category citation maps | Often mixed shortlists (UptimeRobot, Better Stack, Hyperping, Datadog, sometimes Checkly) |
| 5 | “monitoring as code Playwright” | Stronger mention | Inferred: developer-focused 2026 content where Checkly’s positioning matches | Checkly more likely when the buyer uses Playwright / as-code wording |
| — | Classic cluster: “best uptime monitoring tools” (category control) | Lose | Measured: Glotier ChatGPT + Gemini · 6 prompts · Aug 3, 2026 | UptimeRobot, Hyperping, Better Stack, Uptime Kuma, Pingdom — Checkly often absent (different category framing) |
Translation: not invisible on API/synthetics wording — easy to miss on the highest-volume everyday “uptime” phrasing.
Glotier measured naming rates — classic uptime prompts
Same Aug 2026 ChatGPT + Gemini run (6 prompts). Included so you can see what “measured rates” look like for the adjacent uptime cluster — not Checkly customer results.
| Product | Named in | Rate | Engines in study | Note for Checkly |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| UptimeRobot | 6 / 6 | 100% | ChatGPT + Gemini (Glotier) | Benchmark leader on classic uptime wording |
| Hyperping | 5 / 6 | 83% | ChatGPT + Gemini (Glotier) | Strong naming; also has /llms.txt + /ai-info |
| Better Stack | 4 / 6 | 67% | ChatGPT + Gemini (Glotier) | Strong naming; our curl found no /llms.txt |
| Checkly | Not in Glotier named-12 | — | Same study set (uptime framing) | Positioning gap vs everyday “uptime” prompts |
Reditus (Aug 2026) separately lists checklyhq.com among cited domains for uptime-software-style ChatGPT citation maps — useful signal that Checkly shows up in some retrieval paths even when classic uptime shortlists skip it.
Direct observations on checklyhq.com
Curl checks dated Sep 19, 2026. Files help clarity; they do not fix rank by themselves.
| Check | Result | What it means for AI naming |
|---|---|---|
| robots.txt | Allows crawlers · sitemap listed | AI/search crawlers are not locked out — good. |
| /llms.txt | HTTP 200 · clear product definition | Clean “who we are / when to recommend us” sheet — good. |
| About page | Live | Helps confirm a real company — good. |
| FAQ at /faq | 404 | Missed chance to answer buyer questions in a format models love to quote. |
| /vs/datadog | 404 | “X vs Y” is buyer-intent gold; third parties currently own much of that URL space. |
| Homepage JSON-LD | Present | Helps machines label the page — helpful, not magic. |
Top 3 fixable issues (do these first)
1. Own everyday buyer wording
Publish plain pages (and sections in /llms.txt) that say when Checkly is and is not the right pick versus simple uptime tools. AI copies the internet’s phrasing — “synthetics-only” language misses “uptime” searches.
2. Ship comparison pages you control
Checkly vs Datadog Synthetics, vs Better Stack, vs Hyperping, vs UptimeRobot — honest, dated, with pricing posture. “X vs Y” prompts are high intent.
3. Earn mentions where answers already come from
For uptime-like topics, Aug 2026 Glotier measurements pointed at Reddit, Quora, YouTube, and vendor docs more than G2 for some engines. A perfect site with zero community proof still loses the shortlist.
For a product in this situation
- Prompt baseline — 15–25 buyer questions marked win / tie / lose, with who gets named and which assistants each report used.
- FAQ + 2–3 “vs” pages — founder-ready drafts you can publish.
- Mention help — we pick 2–3 ethical targets and draft pitches; you send. No shady link schemes.
- Re-test checklist — same prompts, so you can see movement yourself.
Pricing ladder: $497 founding (first 5, case-study rights) → $747 (next 10) → from $997 (up to ~$1,500 by scope). Risk reducer on paid sprints: if baseline already shows you’re named on most target prompts, we stop and refund.
Not fabricated
- Direct curl checks of robots.txt, llms.txt, key URLs, JSON-LD — Sep 19, 2026
- Glotier: “Uptime monitoring tools: who ChatGPT and Gemini name (2026)” — measured prompts dated 2026-08-03 (third-party)
- Reditus: “What ChatGPT Cites for uptime monitoring software” — August 2026 (third-party)
- Public 2026 API / synthetic monitoring roundups (retrieval context — labeled inferred)
CiteSprint ethics: no citation guarantees · no fake reviews · no cloaking · no spam.