Start with a business decision
A useful first search reflects a decision your customer actually faces. “What is the best software?” is too broad to diagnose a specific business. Add the audience, task and a meaningful constraint: “Which CRM should a small consultancy use to manage leads and follow-up?” Keep the wording natural. Do not insert your brand into every question if the purpose is to measure unprompted discovery.
Write down what you hope to learn before running the search: whether your business appears, which alternatives appear, or which pages support the answer. That purpose will determine the next action. A single result describes a recorded sample; it cannot establish your position across every conversation.
Set the brand and scope
- Open the dashboard and choose New search. Sign in or create and verify your account when prompted. The current free-report entry gives a new eligible account one complete AI search; check the offer shown in your account.
- Confirm the business name, website and appropriate aliases. A generic word can match an unrelated passage, so use names that identify the business accurately.
- Enter the buyer question. Choose the market and language. Treat a different market or language as a new measurement, even if the wording is translated.
- Review the available sources and the search quote. Keep consumer search experiences and API-labelled sources distinct when interpreting the results. An API answer is not proof of what every user sees in the corresponding consumer app.
- Start the search and use its progress view. Collection can take time. Return to Search status if you leave the screen.
Understand exactly what one credit covers
One credit covers one complete question, market/language and run across your selected available sources. Two questions are two searches. Repeating the same question later is another search. A credit is consumed when the selected scope has usable evidence and the complete report is saved; failed or incomplete searches release the reserved credit. Avoid starting duplicate runs while the first is still in progress.
Professional: $49 USD/month for 100 credits; Business: $129 USD/month for 300 credits; Agency: $299 USD/month for 750 credits. All tiers include the same IndexHalo feature set. Applicable tax is additional. Monthly credits reset without rollover; separately held non-expiring credits remain distinct. Reading or exporting a saved report does not consume another search credit.
Read the result in three passes
First, read Overview’s headline and its numerator and denominator. “Named in four of five answers” is more informative than a bare percentage. Next, distinguish a name mention from a citation to the business website. A business can be discussed without its own pages being used as sources. Finally, open Chats or the linked supporting passage and read the original answer in context.
Check the collection date, exact question, market, source label and cited URL. If an answer was unavailable, do not count it as an observed non-mention. If one source returned one answer, its percentage describes that one answer. Save the report before changing scope so you can return to the same evidence.
Choose one useful action
When a competitor appears and your business does not, inspect how the answer explains its choice. When your business appears but your website is rarely cited, inspect the pages that were cited. The first task might be to improve a specific explanation, verify a claim or strengthen a useful page; it need not be to publish another article. Record the supporting answer, affected page, owner and test for completion.
Your next step
Run one carefully scoped question, open one original answer and write one action that the evidence supports.
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