MentionForge — AI Search Visibility

Are AI-powered search tools recommending your business — or your competitors?

MentionForge — AI Search Visibility helps WordPress site owners investigate how their organization appears in AI-generated answers, monitor competitor mentions, and identify website improvements worth making.

Instead of leaving you with a score, MentionForge connects AI evaluation results with your public website content to suggest specific pages to improve, what to change, and draft copy for editorial review.

Get started with ChatGPT — no API key needed for setup

Setting up your organization, competitors, and search questions should not require a technical background. MentionForge includes an optional guided AI Setup workflow:

1. Copy a ready-made request from MentionForge and open ChatGPT.
2. Paste ChatGPT’s JSON response into MentionForge.
3. Review the proposed business details, competitors, and search questions before saving.

No paid API key is required for this setup workflow. You use ChatGPT separately and paste the result back into WordPress. ChatGPT suggestions are not independently verified by MentionForge; check business details and competitor URLs before approving them. Manual configuration is also available.

What MentionForge can do

• Organization profile: Manage your business description, website, and known aliases.
• Competitor tracking: Compare mentions of your organization and selected competitors.
• Search prompt library: Organize real buyer questions into discovery, comparison, and branded prompts.
• AI search evaluations: Run administrator-initiated evaluations and review mentions, rankings, responses, and sources.
• Website Analysis: Discover and scan eligible public pages on your configured website.
• Actionable recommendations: Connect weak visibility results to specific pages and suggested changes.
• Suggested copy and draft pages: Review suggested copy and create unpublished WordPress drafts for further editing.
• Evaluation history: Revisit prior evaluation results.

MentionForge is designed for one primary organization per WordPress installation. Evaluations are initiated manually by a site administrator; the plugin does not promise placement or rankings in third-party AI search results.

Free setup versus paid AI evaluations

• No OpenAI API key needed: Manual configuration, ChatGPT-assisted setup and reviewed import, and public website scanning.
• Your own OpenAI API key required: AI search evaluations and AI-generated recommendations. OpenAI API usage is billed separately by OpenAI according to your account and usage.

The free setup workflow does not connect your WordPress site to your ChatGPT account. ChatGPT and the OpenAI API are separate services.

SEO plugin compatibility

MentionForge does not require or automatically configure a specific SEO plugin. Drafts include copyable SEO title and meta description suggestions in a dedicated editorial review panel.

AI provider requirements

OpenAI is the currently supported provider for AI evaluations and recommendation generation. Support for additional AI providers is planned for future releases. Website Analysis scans eligible public pages from the configured website and does not require an AI provider request.

External Services

This plugin connects to the OpenAI API when an administrator explicitly initiates an AI-powered action after configuring an OpenAI API key.

Service: OpenAI
Service website: https://openai.com/
OpenAI Services Agreement: https://openai.com/policies/services-agreement/
OpenAI Privacy Policy: https://openai.com/policies/privacy-policy/

Data sent during an AI search evaluation:

• The search prompt configured by the administrator.
• API request configuration needed to generate the response.

Data sent while generating recommendations:

• The monitored search prompt.
• The stored AI evaluation response and visibility information.
• Organization information configured by the administrator.
• Selected text, page titles, headings, meta descriptions, and URLs from public pages scanned by Website Analysis.

The plugin does not automatically send this information merely because it is activated. AI requests occur when an administrator configures the service and initiates the relevant AI-powered action.

OpenAI API usage can incur charges on the administrator’s OpenAI account.

Source code

MentionForge ships its PHP, JavaScript, and CSS in human-readable source form. No build step is required to inspect, modify, or run the distributed plugin.

Privacy

MentionForge — AI Search Visibility stores configuration, evaluations, scanned public website text, and generated recommendations in the site’s WordPress database.

The plugin adds suggested disclosure text to WordPress’s Privacy Policy Guide.

For AI-powered features, information is sent to OpenAI only when an administrator has configured an OpenAI API key and initiates an AI-powered action. Review the External Services section above and OpenAI’s applicable terms before using those features.

Support

For product information, documentation, and support information, visit:
https://davidjsweeney.com/mentionforge/

1. Install MentionForge through Plugins > Add Plugin, or upload the plugin ZIP in WordPress.
2. Activate the plugin and open MentionForge in the WordPress administration menu.
3. Set up your organization manually, or use AI Setup to copy a request into ChatGPT and import reviewed suggestions.
4. Review your organization details, competitors, and search prompts.
5. To run AI evaluations and generate AI recommendations, enter your own OpenAI API key under Settings.
6. Run an Evaluation, then use Website Analysis and Recommendations to review possible improvements.

Do I need to pay for ChatGPT or have an OpenAI API key to set up MentionForge?

No paid API key is required for the optional ChatGPT-assisted setup workflow. Copy the setup request into ChatGPT, then paste the generated JSON back into MentionForge and review it before saving. You can also configure everything manually.

Which features require an OpenAI API key?

AI search evaluations and AI-generated recommendations require your own OpenAI API key. OpenAI bills API usage separately. Manual configuration, the ChatGPT copy-and-paste setup workflow, and Website Analysis do not require an OpenAI API key.

Does MentionForge automatically discover and verify my competitors?

No. ChatGPT can suggest competitors during setup, but MentionForge does not independently verify those suggestions. Review competitor names and URLs before saving.

Which AI providers are supported?

OpenAI is currently supported for evaluations and recommendation generation. Support for additional AI providers is planned for future releases.

Does the plugin run AI requests automatically?

No. AI requests are initiated by an administrator from the plugin interface.

What website content is scanned?

Website Analysis discovers eligible public URLs from the organization’s sitemap and stores text snapshots of a limited number of public pages in the WordPress database.

Does Website Analysis scan other domains?

No. Discovered and requested pages are restricted to the configured organization’s hostname, and WordPress safe HTTP request handling is used.

What is sent to OpenAI?

Evaluation prompts are sent when an administrator runs an evaluation. Recommendation generation can additionally send selected content from scanned public website pages together with the relevant evaluation result and configured organization information. See the External Services section for details.

Are recommendations automatically applied to my website?

No. Recommendations are displayed for review. The plugin does not automatically change public website content.

Can I track more than one organization?

The current release is designed around one primary organization per WordPress installation.

1.2.27

• Fix AI Setup import of ChatGPT JSON containing HTML-encoded whitespace, Markdown fences, or escaped line endings.
• Normalize pasted setup data in both preview and server-side import while preserving valid JSON string escapes.
• Bound website scan response sizes and URL lengths to reduce resource-exhaustion risk.
• Validate the configured website URL and queued sitemap URLs before requesting them.
• Preserve the existing evaluation and draft-generation behavior.

1.2.25

• Prepare release-candidate documentation and correct changelog version history.
• Preserve existing evaluation, scanning, and draft-generation behavior.

1.2.24

• Harden setup JSON handling and review-notice nonce validation.
• Address WordPress coding-standard naming warnings in admin views.

1.2.23

• Complete uninstall cleanup for plugin settings, temporary notices, and draft review metadata while retaining created posts.
• Consolidate the WordPress.org changelog.

1.2.22

• Harden public-page scanning and restrict scan requests to discovered URLs.
• Remove automatic API calls on Settings page load; add explicit connection test and API-key removal.

1.1.0

• Fixed the Dashboard so partial evaluation runs count toward evaluation totals and onboarding completion.

1.0.0

• Initial public release.
• Added organization and competitor configuration.
• Added prompt library and AI search evaluations.
• Added evaluation progress and error handling.
• Added Website Analysis with sitemap discovery and page scanning.
• Added definitive page-level recommendations and suggested copy.
• Added external-service and privacy disclosures.
• Hardened public website fetching and organization-domain restrictions.
• Added uninstall cleanup.

1.2.2

• Added free ChatGPT-assisted configuration handoff and reviewed JSON import.
• Added local WordPress content discovery fallback, including WooCommerce products.