Generated by Rank Math SEO, this is an llms.txt file designed to help LLMs better understand and index this website.

# Softrecs

## Sitemaps
- [XML Sitemap](https://softrecs.com/sitemap_index.xml): Includes all crawlable and indexable pages.

## Pages
- [How Softrecs is made](https://softrecs.com/how-we-make-this/): Method · How this site is made
- [AI Leaderboard: Membership plugins](https://softrecs.com/leaderboard/membership-plugins/): AI Plugin Leaderboard · Membership · September 2026
- [AI Leaderboard: LMS plugins](https://softrecs.com/leaderboard/lms-plugins/): AI Plugin Leaderboard · LMS · September 2026
- [AI Leaderboard: Backup plugins](https://softrecs.com/leaderboard/backup-plugins/): AI Plugin Leaderboard · Backup · September 2026
- [AI Leaderboard: Caching plugins](https://softrecs.com/leaderboard/caching-plugins/): AI Plugin Leaderboard · Caching · September 2026
- [AI Leaderboard: Booking plugins](https://softrecs.com/leaderboard/booking-plugins/): AI Plugin Leaderboard · Booking · September 2026
- [AI Plugin Leaderboard](https://softrecs.com/leaderboard/): Plugin Visibility Index · AI Plugin Leaderboard · September 2026
- [Free AI crawler checker for WordPress plugins](https://softrecs.com/tools/plugin-retrievability-check/): Free. Give it a wordpress.org plugin slug and it fetches the vendor site as each AI retrieval crawler does — certificate, redirects, robots rules split by crawler purpose, live response code, and whether the content is in the HTML that arrives.
- [Prompt set builder](https://softrecs.com/tools/): Free tool · no email required
- [Results: what I have moved, and what I am moving in public](https://softrecs.com/results/): Results
- [AI SEO audit for WordPress plugins: find out why AI engines recommend your competitor](https://softrecs.com/audit/): The offer
- [An AI SEO and GEO consultant for WordPress plugin and SaaS teams, month by month](https://softrecs.com/work-with-me/): Ongoing work
- [Contact](https://softrecs.com/contact/): Contact
- [Alauddin Chowdhury](https://softrecs.com/about/): About
- [Softrecs: GEO for WordPress plugins](https://softrecs.com/): GEO & AI search visibility · WordPress plugins & micro-SaaS
- [Terms & Condition](https://softrecs.com/terms-condition/): By accessing this website, we assume you accept these terms and conditions. Do not continue to use SoftRecs if you do not agree to take all of softrecs policies and terms and conditions stated on this page.
- [Privacy Policy](https://softrecs.com/privacy-policy/): At SoftRecs, accessible from https://softrecs.com, we take your privacy seriously. This Privacy Policy outlines the types of information we collect, how we use it, and your rights regarding your data.

## The Index
- [Run 06: Zero citations, what a month of publishing did not do](https://softrecs.com/index/run-06/): Run 06 of the Plugin Visibility Index: softrecs.com was cited in 0 of 72 AI answers on 10 October 2026. Google AI Mode leaned on YouTube, Reddit and LinkedIn; ChatGPT showed 12% of what it read.
- [ChatGPT citations: it reads twenty-three sources and shows you three](https://softrecs.com/index/run-05/): Run 05 · 10 September 2026 — Ten categories on ChatGPT: 217 sources retrieved, 36 displayed. Adding a third engine lowers cross-engine agreement rather than raising it — and corrects what Run 03 concluded about wordpress.org locale mirrors.
- [Asking the same question twice measures the cache, not the engine](https://softrecs.com/index/run-04/): Run 04 · 8 September 2026 — Repeat an identical query to Perplexity and it returns the identical source list. Add a question mark and a fifth of the sources change. Which means fixed-wording AI visibility tracking may be measuring a cache rather than a position.
- [Two AI engines give similar answers from almost none of the same sources](https://softrecs.com/index/run-03/): Run 03 · 8 September 2026 — Perplexity and Google AI Mode, asked the identical question in ten WordPress plugin categories, named a median 53% of the same products but cited only 15% of the same domains — and Google took YouTube as a source in eight categories where Perplexity took it in none.
- [Do two AI engines recommend the same WordPress plugins?](https://softrecs.com/index/run-02/): Run 02 · 7 September 2026 — Perplexity and Google AI Mode, asked the identical question in ten WordPress plugin categories, name a median of 53% of the same products and disagree on the top pick in four of ten — against a 75% baseline for one engine asked twice.
- [Who actually supplies the sources in AI answers about WordPress plugins?](https://softrecs.com/index/attribution-01/): Attribution 01 · 6 September 2026 — Across 60 recorded Perplexity answers in ten WordPress plugin categories, one domain takes a median 43% of an answer's citations — and the most-cited domain overall is a booking-plugin vendor writing about categories it does not compete in.
- [Run 01: ask the same question twice and a quarter of the answer changes](https://softrecs.com/index/run-01/): Run 01 · 5 September 2026 — Perplexity, ten WordPress plugin categories, September 2026. The same prompt run twice returned overlaps of 100%, 75%, 50% and 40% depending on the category — and even at 100% overlap the top recommendation changed.

## Glossary
- [Citation source map](https://softrecs.com/glossary/citation-source-map/): The set of URLs an AI engine actually pulled from when answering a question about your category. Usually not your site — and often your competitors’ blogs.
- [GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, PerplexityBot: which AI crawlers to allow](https://softrecs.com/glossary/retrieval-crawler/): A bot that fetches pages in real time to answer a question being asked right now — as opposed to a training crawler, which collects text for a future model. Blocking the wrong one removes you from AI answers entirely.
- [Answer volatility](https://softrecs.com/glossary/answer-volatility/): How much an AI answer changes when you ask the identical question again. Measured as overlap between runs. In ten WordPress plugin categories it ranged from 100% to 40%.
- [Generative engine optimization (GEO)](https://softrecs.com/glossary/generative-engine-optimization/): Getting a product named in the answer an AI engine gives, rather than ranked in a list of links. Related to SEO, but measured differently and won by different means.

## Guides
- [AI search statistics (2026): GEO stats checked against the source](https://softrecs.com/guides/geo-statistics-checked/): We opened the primary study behind 20 AI search and GEO statistics. See which hold up, which are misquoted, and which have no source.
- [WebMCP on WordPress: a working example, and what Lighthouse agentic browsing checks](https://softrecs.com/guides/ai-agent-readiness-plugin-site/): Guide 16 · Agents
- [What the Search Console Generative AI report shows, and what it cannot](https://softrecs.com/guides/search-console-generative-ai-report/): Search Console now reports Google AI Overview and AI Mode impressions. It has no clicks, no queries and no way to split the two. Here is what it measures, where the clicks already sit, and what our own report showed.
- [Do manufactured brand mentions work for AI search?](https://softrecs.com/guides/do-manufactured-brand-mentions-work/): Brand mentions correlate with AI visibility more than backlinks do, but Google says seeking inauthentic mentions is not as helpful as it looks. What our citation data shows about where engines actually read.
- [How to write content for AI search](https://softrecs.com/guides/how-to-write-content-for-ai-search/): Google says there is no special way to write for its AI features. Our data shows why matching one phrasing fails: a one-character change to a question changes a fifth of the sources. What does get cited.
- [Do you need to chunk content for AI?](https://softrecs.com/guides/do-you-need-to-chunk-content-for-ai/): Google says there is no requirement to break content into small pieces for AI. In our 45-answer run, the most-cited vendor publishes long comparison articles. Why chunking a site can backfire, and how to structure pages instead.
- [What Google’s AI optimization guide confirms, and what our data adds](https://softrecs.com/guides/google-ai-optimization-guide/): Google's official guide to AI Overviews and AI Mode lists five things you don't need: llms.txt, schema, chunking, AI-style writing and bought mentions. Our data agrees on all five, and shows what the guide cannot tell you about the other engines.
- [Are AI visibility tracking tools accurate?](https://softrecs.com/guides/are-ai-visibility-tracking-tools-accurate/): Fixed prompt wording is the published best practice across this category — and an identical query string returned an identical source list from Perplexity, twice. Which metrics that degrades, which it does not, and the five questions to put to a vendor.
- [Should URLs be shallow for AI crawlers?](https://softrecs.com/guides/should-urls-be-shallow-for-ai-crawlers/): Path depth correlates with citation at r = +0.002 — indistinguishable from zero. Query strings are associated with 24% fewer citations, so the rule is a clean path rather than a shallow one. What that means for a WordPress site: almost nothing.
- [Are comparison pages worth building at scale?](https://softrecs.com/guides/are-comparison-pages-worth-building/): Comparisons are 2.2% of citations against 21.88% for listicles, so a page per competitor pairing aims at a fiftieth of the opportunity. But the few worth building do a specific job — and a plugin with five million installs shows exactly what that job is.
- [Does schema markup increase AI citations?](https://softrecs.com/guides/does-schema-markup-increase-ai-citations/): The one controlled test found no lift. Why the argument for schema sounds airtight and where it breaks, what schema is genuinely worth keeping for, and what would change the verdict.
- [Do backlinks drive AI search visibility?](https://softrecs.com/guides/do-backlinks-drive-ai-search-visibility/): Backlinks correlate at 0.22, unlinked brand mentions at 0.66, YouTube presence at 0.74. Why the mechanism is different from classic search, what ten measured plugin categories show about where answers actually come from, and how much of this to believe.
- [Do AI crawlers run JavaScript?](https://softrecs.com/guides/do-ai-crawlers-run-javascript/): Generally not — they fetch your HTML and parse it. Googlebot renders JavaScript, which is why a site can rank in classic search and be invisible to the engines that answer questions. How to check in two minutes, and which WordPress setups are actually at risk.
- [What is AEO, and how is it different from GEO and SEO?](https://softrecs.com/guides/geo-vs-aeo/): One term comes from a KDD 2024 paper with a published benchmark; the other is an industry coinage. In practice they ask you to do the same things. What is measurably different is retrieval versus attribution, and one engine versus another.
- [How to get cited by ChatGPT, and why your plugin isn’t yet](https://softrecs.com/guides/plugin-not-showing-up-in-chatgpt/): Three different reasons, identical from the outside, opposite fixes. A fifteen-minute diagnostic built on 52 tracked plugins across ten categories and two engines — including one with five million installs that AI answers never name.
- [llms.txt: an example, how to add it in WordPress, and does it work?](https://softrecs.com/guides/does-llms-txt-work/): Ahrefs checked 137,000 sites with an llms.txt file: 97% had never been fetched by any crawler. What the file is meant to do, why no engine reads it, how to check your own logs, and what to fix instead.
- [Six pieces of GEO advice the evidence does not support](https://softrecs.com/guides/geo-advice-evidence-does-not-support/): llms.txt, schema markup, backlinks, shallow URLs, mass comparison pages, and the assumption that AI crawlers run JavaScript — what the studies actually show, and what to do instead.

## About this file
Google Search ignores llms.txt, including for AI Overviews and AI Mode. Source: Google Search Central, "Optimizing your website for generative AI features on Google Search" (https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/ai-optimization-guide). Softrecs publishes this file for other services that may read it, and scores llms.txt at zero in its own retrievability check. The evidence: https://softrecs.com/guides/does-llms-txt-work/