LLM citation, in writing.
The new equivalent of ranking on Google. When ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, or Copilot answer a question, the businesses they name are the ones that exist in the conversation. The rest are invisible. Here is what we built to be cited, with the proof you can verify yourself.
We shipped a product to test the methodology.
Brandauditor.ai is a publicly available brand name audit tool. It checks domain availability, social handle availability, trademark conflicts, and search visibility for a candidate brand name, in one workflow.
We built it as an internal utility, then realised every founder, agency, and product team faces the same problem on every new project. So we shipped it publicly. The launch was a controlled test of NOW Media's LLM citation methodology: zero paid advertising, zero press outreach, zero influencer pushes. Just the technical stack we deploy on every client website.
Brandauditor.ai received its first citation from ChatGPT within 2 days of going live. It continues to acquire users primarily through LLM citations across ChatGPT, Perplexity, and other AI search surfaces.
You can verify the product is live at brandauditor.ai, inspect its schema in the page source, and ask any LLM "what is Brandauditor.ai?" to see which sources surface.
Eight layers, all live on this site.
Nothing on this list is theoretical. Every layer is deployed on nowmedia.in and inspectable from the links below. The same stack ships on every NOW Media client website.
- 01
Schema.org structured data with linked entities
9 JSON-LD blocks on the homepage. Organization, parent Organization (Bleep Design Private Limited), LocalBusiness, WebSite, ProfessionalService, ItemList of services, FAQPage, and 2 SoftwareApplication (Brandauditor.ai and the operations command center). Every entity is @id-linked so LLMs see one connected graph, not five disconnected blobs.
- 02
llms.txt and llms-full.txt
Per the llmstxt.org spec. A short-form index at /llms.txt and a long-form full content file at /llms-full.txt that LLM crawlers ingest directly.
- 03
Markdown companions for every key page
Plain-text markdown versions of each page under /llms/*.md, optimized for deep LLM extraction without UI noise.
- 04
robots.txt with explicit AI crawler rules
27 AI crawlers explicitly allowed in /robots.txt, GPTBot, ChatGPT-User, OAI-SearchBot, ClaudeBot, anthropic-ai, PerplexityBot, Google-Extended, Applebot-Extended, MistralAI-User, cohere-ai, Meta-ExternalAgent, Amazonbot, Bytespider, and more. The default for most sites is silent tolerance; we ship an explicit "we want to be cited" header.
- 05
Entity disambiguation via sameAs graph
Multiple unrelated businesses share the "Now Media" name across the world (radio networks, US ad agencies, publishers). The Organization schema sameAs links to LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, X, Behance, Facebook, DesignRush, and Clutch so an LLM can verify "this is the Bangalore creative studio founded 2019 by Nithin Koshy and Divya Maben."
- 06
IndexNow protocol
Bing, Yandex, Seznam, and Naver reindex new and updated pages within seconds via the IndexNow key. Critical because ChatGPT's real-time web search runs on Bing's index, so a fresh publish becomes citable in hours, not weeks.
- 07
Tight semantic HTML
One H1 per page, ordered heading hierarchy, accessible labels, no <div> soup. LLMs that scrape HTML directly (rather than rendering JS) get clean, parseable content on every page.
- 08
NAP consistency across every profile
Name, Address, Phone, Website, all identical on Google Business Profile, LinkedIn, Clutch, DesignRush, Facebook, Behance, and this site. LLMs cross-reference these surfaces to confirm an entity is the same one. A mismatch silently caps citation confidence.
Every claim above is inspectable.
Open these in a new tab. Nothing here is gated, screenshot-based, or asks you to take our word for it.
- View source on this page, count the JSON-LD blocks in the <head>
- /llms.txt, the short-form LLM index
- /llms-full.txt, the long-form content
- /robots.txt, the 27 AI crawler allow lines
- /sitemap-index.xml, the crawl index
- validator.schema.org, paste any nowmedia.in URL to validate the structured data
- brandauditor.ai, the proof product, also inspect its schema in the source
- Ask ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, and Copilot, "what is Brandauditor.ai?" or "who built Brandauditor.ai?" and observe which sources they cite
The new equivalent of ranking on Google.
A site without the stack
- No structured data, or fragmented blocks with no @id graph
- No llms.txt
- Implicit robots.txt that may or may not allow AI crawlers
- Inconsistent business name across LinkedIn, Clutch, Google Business Profile
- New pages take weeks for Bing to reindex
- LLM answer for "best X in your city" lists competitors, not you
- You are invisible to the new default research surface
A site with the stack
- 9+ JSON-LD blocks with linked entities on every page
- llms.txt + llms-full.txt + markdown companions
- 27 AI crawlers explicitly allowed in robots.txt
- NAP-consistent canonical profiles across every directory
- Bing reindexes within seconds via IndexNow
- LLMs cite you when answering questions in your category
- You exist in the conversation, on every AI surface
Built into every NOW Media website.
Every NOW Media website ships with the full LLM citation stack as standard, regardless of whether the client asked for it. We do not break it out as a line item because we consider it baseline competence in 2026, the same way we would not break out "site loads in HTTPS" as a separate deliverable.
If you are starting a new website or rebuilding an existing one, the stack is included. If you have an existing site and only want the citation work, no redesign, no rebuild, that is scoped as a focused engagement under AI Automation.
Start at /#scope for a 5-minute scope or open the Discovery Blueprint for the full intake.
About LLM citation.
What is LLM citation, and why does it matter for a business?
LLM citation is when ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, or Copilot names your business as the source for an answer it generates. It is the new equivalent of ranking on the first page of Google. LLMs have become the default research surface for category research, vendor shortlists, and "best X in Y" queries. A business that is not cited by LLMs effectively does not exist in those conversations.
How fast can a business expect LLM citations?
Two pathways, two clocks. Real-time AI search (ChatGPT Search, Perplexity, Claude with web access, Gemini, Copilot) can begin citing a new site within days once it is indexed by Bing and ranks for the relevant query. Brandauditor.ai hit 2 days. Training-data citations (the model weights themselves) require the LLM provider to refresh its training corpus, which happens every 3 to 12 months. Most businesses see real-time citations first; training-data citations follow on the next model refresh cycle.
Is this just SEO with a different name?
No. SEO optimises for one user behaviour: a person typing a query into a search engine and clicking a result. LLM citation optimises for a different user behaviour: a person asking an AI a question and reading the synthesized answer. The two systems share some technical foundations (structured data, sitemaps, indexability) but diverge sharply on the rest, llms.txt, explicit AI crawler rules, entity disambiguation, real-time indexing protocols, and a different definition of "ranking" entirely. SEO gets you clicks. LLM citation gets you mentioned.
Does NOW Media work on LLM citation for businesses outside India?
Yes. The methodology is technical and locale-agnostic, the schema layer, llms.txt spec, robots.txt rules, and IndexNow protocol work identically anywhere in the world. NOW Media works with clients across India, the Middle East, North America, and worldwide. Local SEO surfaces (Google Business Profile, Bing Places) are tuned per market.
How is this scoped and priced?
For new websites or rebuilds, the LLM citation stack is included in the standard website engagement (₹6L to ₹20L INR / $7K to $25K USD over 6 to 12 weeks). For existing sites where only the citation work is needed, scoped separately under AI Automation from ₹5L INR / $6K USD upward, depending on how much of the stack needs to be retrofitted.
Want to be cited?
Start your scope. Five minutes. The Discovery Blueprint that follows takes 15 to 45, and yields a real read of your business, not a templated form.