AI Visibility Index · ,

Mentioned vs You.com: AI Visibility for Trade Contractors

If you're a trade contractor trying to get more visibility online, you may have heard about both Mentioned and You.com. Here's the thing: they're solving different problems. This comparison will save you time figuring out which one actually matters for your business.

What You.com Does Well

You.com is a web search API platform. It's infrastructure for developers and AI companies who want to integrate live search results into their products or internal tools. Think of it like Stripe for search: it's a plumbing layer that powers other applications.

If you're building an AI assistant, a customer-facing search product, or need programmatic access to web results for your own system, You.com is useful. It's not marketed at trade contractors. It's marketed at product teams and companies that need reliable search data at scale.

Where Mentioned Is Different

Mentioned answers a specific question: "Am I showing up when AI talks about my trade?" We track visibility in ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and Gemini—the four AI systems that now influence buying decisions for home and business services.

This is local to you. We audited 137 trade contractors and found the median visibility score is 32/100, with top operators hitting 79. That's a 47-point spread. The difference between visible and invisible is usually a few intentional moves, not luck.

Mentioned gives you the audit (free, 90 seconds), the data (your visibility score in each AI), and the roadmap (what to fix). We open-source our methodology and dataset so you can trust the numbers. No black box. No vendor lock-in theater.

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Mentioned You.com
Built for trade contractors Yes No
Tracks ChatGPT/Perplexity/Claude/Gemini visibility Yes N/A (infrastructure layer)
Free audit Yes (90 sec) No (API pricing)
Shows your visibility score Yes No
Open dataset + methodology Yes No
Monthly monitoring Yes (founder cohort: $297/mo or $1,497 lifetime) No (API infrastructure only)
Search API for developers No Yes
Requires no technical setup Yes No (API integration required)

Best For

Mentioned: You own or operate a trade contractor business (HVAC, plumbing, electrical, roofing, etc.) and want to know if AI is recommending you when homeowners ask ChatGPT or Perplexity "best electrician near me" or "how to fix my AC."

You.com: You're a developer or product team building something that needs live web search results as a feature or data pipeline. You.com is the infrastructure—useful for large-scale integrations, not for understanding your own visibility.

Can You Use Both?

Technically, yes. But they solve different layers. You.com could theoretically power a visibility tracker's search infrastructure. Mentioned specifically tracks contractors' AI visibility and tells you what to fix. If you're a trade contractor, Mentioned is the tool that moves your needle. You.com doesn't care about you—and that's okay, it's not designed to.

Next Step

Get your AI visibility score in 90 seconds, free. No credit card. No vendor lock-in.

Run Your Free Audit

If you like what you see, we're running a founder cohort closing July 4. Either $297/mo for monthly tracking or $1,497 lifetime access—same features, same data, locked-in price. After July 4, pricing goes standard.

Run yours now · 90 seconds · free

See your You.com AI visibility score in

Enter your business below. We run live queries across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and Gemini. You get your score in under 90 seconds.

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Common questions about AI visibility for You.com contractors in

How is AI visibility different from Google ranking?

Google ranks pages. AI search engines like ChatGPT and Perplexity name specific businesses in answers. A You.com contractor in can rank #1 on Google and still be invisible in ChatGPT, because the signals are different (schema, citations, structured data, training-data presence).

How long does it take to improve my AI visibility score?

Most You.com contractors see meaningful score lift within 30-60 days of implementing the three core fixes: Google Business Profile completion, consistent industry directory listings, and schema markup. The 47-point gap between median (32) and top performers (79) is closeable.

Does my You.com business need this if I already rank on Google?

Yes. Roughly 40% of homeowner searches now start in ChatGPT or Perplexity instead of Google. Even with strong Google rankings, you can be completely invisible in AI answers, which means losing calls you don't even know about.

What's included in the free audit?

Your AI visibility score across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and Gemini. Specific gap analysis against top performers in . Three highest-leverage fixes prioritized by impact. Takes 90 seconds, no card required.