1The short answer
On 24 how-it-works, selection, sizing and troubleshooting questions, your sites were a source on 15 to 20 answers per engine. You were presented as a vendor on none.
On 12 who-makes-it and emergency questions, a PT&P business was listed or recommended on 8 to 11 answers per engine. GPT put you first on 6.
Where an engine did credit you on a how-it-works question, the fact was yours alone: your indicator plate, your cold shoe detail, your figure numbers.
Your pages already hold the content the engines pick. They lack your company's name in the same sentence as the fact, and a next step for the engineer who follows the link. Section 5 is about those two things.
- Expansion joints belong to usbellows.com in these answers. It was cited on 5 or 6 of 9 expansion joint questions on every engine. pipingtech.com was cited on 0 to 2.
- Four topics came back without you on three or four engines: what an expansion joint does, types of metal expansion joints, the clevis hanger, and acoustic induced vibration. Section 4 shows what happened when we asked each one three more ways.
- 22 YouTube videos were cited inside AI answers. None is yours. Two are competitors' travel stop videos. You have install videos on the same products with empty descriptions.
- Copies of your documents on Scribd and SlideShare are being cited in place of your own pages, mostly by Perplexity.
2Where you stand in AI answers
The engines treat you as a reference on engineering questions and as a supplier on buying questions. The split is the same on all four. Each bar is one engine. Each segment is a count of answers, graded by a reader against a fixed rubric.
24 questions about how it works, which to pick, how to size it, what went wrong
12 questions about who makes it and who can respond in an emergency
The same counts, split by business and by site
Springs are carried by pipingtech.com. Expansion joints are carried by usbellows.com. The parent's name almost never appears on an expansion joint answer.
| Product line | Questions | Measure | AI Overview | AI Mode | Perplexity | GPT |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Engineered springs | 11 | pipingtech.com is a source | 6 of 9 shown | 6 | 9 | 11 |
| PT&P named in the text | 3 | 5 | 2 | 4 | ||
| Expansion joints | 9 | usbellows.com is a source | 5 of 7 shown | 5 | 6 | 6 |
| pipingtech.com is a source | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 | ||
| U.S. Bellows named in the text | 2 | 4 | 3 | 5 | ||
| PT&P named in the text | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | ||
| Pipe supports | 7 | pipingtech.com is a source | 2 of 6 shown | 4 | 5 | 5 |
| Vibration and restraints | 5 | pipingtech.com is a source | 2 | 2 | 3 | 3 |
| Field service and emergency | 4 | PT&P named in the text | 3 of 3 shown | 3 | 3 | 4 |
"Named in the text" in this table is a text match on the company name. The bars above are the reader's grade, which also catches "Piping Tech" and answers whose sources sit in inline links. The two differ on 11 of 153 answers.
What you were named for on engineering questions
Every one of these is a fact that only your site states. It is the strongest naming pattern in the data. The questions are ones engineers already ask, worded from Eng-Tips forum threads, from searches that already reach pipingtech.com, and from the buyer groups in the SEO audit. It is a pattern from one pass, and we would test it on two or three pages before rolling it out.
| Question | Engines that named you | What they credited to you |
|---|---|---|
| Do you read a variable spring's load from the top or the bottom of the indicator? | AI Overview, AI Mode, GPT | Load is read at the bottom edge of the indicator plate |
| Design guide for cryogenic supports on a 304 stainless line at -325F | AI Mode, GPT | Cold shoes avoid welding to the line (cold shoe page); weld the mounting plate to the structure |
| PTFE or graphite slide plates, and up to what temperature | AI Mode, GPT | PTFE to 400 to 500F, graphite above; glass-filled PTFE friction about 0.06 |
| Snubber, sway brace or sway strut | AI Overview, GPT | Definitions and behaviour from your snubber FAQ |
| Replace a Grinnell Fig. B-268 variable spring | GPT (recommended first), AI Overview (listed) | Your Grinnell to PT&P figure chart, PTP-2 |
| Fabric joint or stainless bellows on a hot duct | GPT (U.S. Bellows) | Replaceable belt, 600 to 750F duct service, chloride cracking in 300-series bellows |
3The mention record
Every question, every engine, what role you had, which page was used and what for. 160 rows. Filter by engine, role or product line, or type part of a question.
| Question | Task | Engine | Your role | Business | First page of yours used | Used or named for | Competitors given a vendor role |
|---|
The same record, with the awareness stage, every source domain, the strength of support and the follow-up searches GPT ran, is in two spreadsheets we will send with this audit: the mention table (160 rows) and the prompt record (40 rows).
4What is missing
Four topics came back without you
On the first wording, these four had no PT&P business in the answer on three or four engines. One wording proves little, so we asked each topic three more ways on all four engines.
| Topic | Wording | Google AI Overview | Google AI Mode | Perplexity | GPT with web search |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| What an expansion joint does | What does an expansion joint do in a piping system? | Absent | Absent | Absent | Linked, not named |
| How do pipe expansion joints work? | Absent | Absent | Absent | Linked, not named | |
| Why are expansion joints used in pipelines, and when do you need one? | Absent | Absent | Absent | Linked, not named | |
| Types of metal expansion joints | What is the difference between a hinged and a gimbal expansion joint? | Absent | Named | Linked, not named | Linked, not named |
| Types of metal bellows expansion joints and when to use each | Linked, not named | Linked, not named | Linked, not named | Linked, not named | |
| When do you need a pressure balanced expansion joint? | Linked, not named | Named | Linked, not named | Named | |
| Clevis hangers | What is a clevis hanger used for? | Linked, not named | Absent | Absent | Linked, not named |
| Clevis hanger load rating by pipe size | Absent | Absent | Linked, not named | Linked, not named | |
| How do I choose a clevis hanger for a 6 inch steel pipe? | Absent | Absent | Absent | Linked, not named | |
| Acoustic induced vibration | What causes acoustic induced vibration in piping? | Linked, not named | Linked, not named | Absent | Absent |
| How do you fix AIV on a pressure relief line? | Linked, not named | Linked, not named | Absent | Absent | |
| What is the difference between acoustic induced vibration and flow induced vibration, and how is each mitigated? | Linked, not named | Absent | Absent | Absent |
Graded by a text match on your company names and site addresses, not by a reader, so "named" here covers any mention. Counted over the three new wordings: what an expansion joint does: absent on 9 of 12 answers, named on 0; types of metal expansion joints: absent on 1 of 12 answers, named on 3; clevis hangers: absent on 7 of 12 answers, named on 0; acoustic induced vibration: absent on 7 of 12 answers, named on 0.
Three of the four are real gaps. The fourth was the wording. Asked about hinged, gimbal and pressure balanced joints by name, the engines used one of your sites on 11 of 12 answers and named U.S. Bellows on 3. On what an expansion joint does, on clevis hangers and on acoustic induced vibration, a PT&P site was missing from 7 to 9 of 12 answers and named on none.
Other people's videos answer your product questions
22 YouTube videos were cited inside AI answers, on 8 of 36 questions in AI Overviews and 3 in AI Mode. None is from your channel or U.S. Bellows'. The owners are independent piping educators (EPCLAND, HardHat Engineer), software vendors, and competitors: ASC Engineered Solutions with 2 videos, Lisega USA, Senior Flexonics, Holz Rubber. All 22 have spoken words and captions, and their titles name the task. Section 6 covers your channel.
Copies of your documents are cited in place of your pages
Perplexity cited Scribd on 30 of 36 questions, and one of those documents is a re-upload of your 2017 supports catalog. It cited SlideShare decks titled as PT&P and U.S. Bellows presentations on 5 questions. One AI Overview on expansion joint makers cited a SlideShare copy of a U.S. Bellows webinar and no U.S. Bellows page. It also cited info.pipingtech.com on 5 questions and devptp.pipingtech.com once. In each case the copy is plain text on an open page.
What the engines say about you that you should check
- Google's AI Mode, asked whether PT&P is a reliable supplier, states "around 4.1/5 stars" and attributes it to your customer testimonials page. Check whether that page shows any score.
- Google's AI Overview on the same question says employee reviews on Glassdoor and Indeed describe mandatory six-day work weeks.
- Your founding year appears as 1975, 1976 and 1978 across your history page (1978), your YouTube channel description (1975), a May 2026 press release (1976), your anniversary film, and Wikipedia (1975 in the text, 1978 in the summary box). An engine will repeat whichever one it reads.
Where forum questions fit
The forum questions show where engineers can't find an answer. The one question where PT&P had the only published answer got you recommended first. 14 of the 36 questions are worded from Eng-Tips threads. On 13 of them, the engines answered from general sources and named no vendor at all. The 14th, replacing a Grinnell B-268, was different: your Grinnell chart is the only published answer, so GPT recommended you first and the AI Overview listed you. These questions are live and visible. Eng-Tips is a source on 6 of 36 questions in AI Overviews, 5 in Perplexity and 3 in AI Mode, and it sits in Google's first ten results on 14.
So the recommendation is to find the forum questions only PT&P can answer and publish the answers on your own site. Change 3 starts with the legacy spring brands engineers are trying to identify. How to use the forum research now, in section 7, groups the rest by the job behind them.
5What to change for AI answers
Six changes, in the order we would make them. Each carries a label for how strong the evidence is. For now the order is set by reach: how often AI answers use the page, how often Google shows it, and whether you publish something no one else does. You know better than we do which product lines bring in the most quote requests and revenue, so move the changes that touch those lines up. For example, if expansion joints bring in most of your quotes, start with change 4.
1. Put your name in the same sentence as the fact
Seen in this dataOn the pages engines already use, state the fact, the company and the source together. An example of the wording: "On a PT&P variable spring, read the load at the bottom edge of the indicator plate (Fig. PTP-1 installation guide, revised June 2026)" gives an engine a sentence it cannot quote without you. "The load is read at the bottom of the indicator" gives it a sentence it can.
Start with the six most used pages: the spring supports FAQ (used in 8 answers across all four engines), the snubber FAQ (7), variable spring installation and maintenance (5), the pipe shoe FAQ (5), the preventive maintenance bulletin (5), and variable against constant (4). Add a named engineer and a revision date to each.
Check: on each of the six pages, the first answer under each question names PT&P and a figure number or a document. Rerun the matching questions from the record after four weeks and compare the role column.
2. Give those same pages a next step that fits the question
Standard practiceThe engineer who follows a link from an answer lands on a FAQ or a bulletin, not a service page. Someone reading how to judge a corroded constant should be offered a spring audit. Someone reading load and travel should be offered sizing from their stress report. The six pages above took 839 Google clicks in 92 days.
Check: each page has one action in the text that matches its topic, above the footer. This is the same fix as the service pages in the SEO audit, moved to where the readers arrive.
3. Extend the cross-reference charts to the legacy names engineers cannot identify
Seen in this dataThe Grinnell chart is the one page that turned a forum-style question into a first-place recommendation. Forum threads (an unknown Comet or Bergen can, a corroded Grinnell B-268) show engineers stuck on Bergen-Paterson, Comet, Blaw Knox, PSS-Grinnell and Carpenter and Paterson units, and asking who can match them. Publish an equivalent chart for each brand your engineers can vouch for, as a page with the table in text.
Check: an engineer signs off every row. No equivalence is published from a catalog comparison alone.
4. Decide which site owns expansion joints
Your decisionTwo of your sites compete for the same expansion joint questions, and the engines have already picked usbellows.com. pipingtech.com has its own expansion joint pages covering the same products. When two sites answer the same question, they split the signals between them: links, clicks and the engines' sense of which page is the authority. Here usbellows.com won. It was a source on 5 or 6 of the 9 expansion joint questions on every engine, and pipingtech.com on 0 to 2.
The bigger cost is that the engines don't connect the two businesses. Outside a mention in the footer, little on either site says U.S. Bellows is PT&P's expansion joint business. So the credit doesn't carry over. U.S. Bellows was named on 2 to 5 of the 9 expansion joint answers per engine, and PT&P on 0 or 1. An engineer who reads about U.S. Bellows in an answer has no reason to know it belongs to the Houston supports company they may already buy springs from, and an engine asked "who makes pipe supports and expansion joints" can't put the two together.
What we would do. Make usbellows.com the home for every expansion joint topic, and stop trying to rank the parent's pages for the same questions. Keep one real overview on pipingtech.com that says U.S. Bellows is your expansion joint business, what it makes, and sends the reader across. Then state the relationship where engines read it: "a Piping Technology & Products company" in the U.S. Bellows header and about page, a short section on each about page naming the other business, and organization markup in the code of both sites linking parent and subsidiary. This changes the expansion joint advice in the SEO audit.
Check: every expansion joint topic has one home, and the parent overview links to it without repeating it. Both about pages and the organization markup name the other business. Rerun the 9 expansion joint questions and count how often PT&P is named alongside U.S. Bellows.
5. Publish your catalog content as pages on your own site
Standard practiceWhere a copy on Scribd or SlideShare is cited, the engine had no page of yours carrying the same text. Start with the sections of the 2017 supports catalog and the U.S. Bellows presentations that were cited. Do not convert every PDF. PDFs were 16 of the 171 uses of your pages.
The PDFs that were the first page of yours an answer used. All six were Perplexity answers. Start with these:
- Catalog pages 14 to 18 (2025): used for spring support definition and types
- Big Ton spring supports: used for loads up to about 200,000 lb
- Spring support inspection and maintenance: used for hanger replacement and maintenance; the one PDF that came with a vendor listing
- Slide plates general information: used for PTFE below 400F, graphite above
- U.S. Bellows fabric expansion joint catalog (hosted on pipingtech.com): used for fabric joints for hot gas in low-pressure ducting
- Assembled fabric expansion joint installation: used for installation steps and inspection
The 16 counts every time a PDF appeared among an answer's sources, so some files repeat. The full list, with every source per answer, is in the mention table spreadsheet.
Check: for each cited copy, a page on pipingtech.com or usbellows.com holds the same tables and text and is in the sitemap.
6. Set the record straight in the places engines read
Standard practiceOne founding year everywhere you control: the site, press releases, the film description, LinkedIn. Decide whether info.pipingtech.com and devptp.pipingtech.com are meant to be public, since both were cited. We do not recommend editing Wikipedia yourselves.
What we would not spend time on. An llms.txt file, because Google has said it does not use one and nothing in this data points to it. Posting in forums, because Eng-Tips does not allow promotion and the forum-worded questions earned you nothing extra.
6YouTube
Your channel has the views and the products. Most of the videos give a search engine no words to read. We read the public details of 72 product, technical and podcast videos out of 96.
| What we counted | Your 72 videos | The 22 cited in AI answers |
|---|---|---|
| No description at all | 27 | 0 |
| Description under 200 characters | 38 | 6 |
| A link anywhere in the description | 18 | 7 |
| No captions of any kind | 36 | 0 |
| Captions uploaded by the channel | 2 | 4 |
| Typical length | 89 seconds | 290 seconds |
A video with no captions is very likely music with text on screen. We have not watched all 36. Captions and length on the cited videos are a pattern. We are not claiming they caused the citation.
- Variable Spring Supports Product Video has 63,476 views, an empty description and no link. Pipe Shoes, Guides, & Anchors has 10,589 views and the same.
- Your two install videos, the Fig. 200 constant (5,339 views) and the sway brace (4,725), have empty descriptions. The travel stop videos cited in AI answers are Lisega's (18,428 views) and ASC's (7,309).
- On your own site the best product videos play from Vimeo, so the YouTube versions get no help from your pages. One page on the site has a transcript.
What we would do, in order
- Make four to six narrated task videos of four to six minutes. Removing travel stops on your variables and constants. Choosing a spring from hot load and travel. Pipe shoe types and when each is used. Snubber, sway brace or strut. An engineer's voice, figure numbers said aloud. These are the topics where other people's videos were cited.
- Write a description for every product and how-to video. The answer in the first two lines, your figure numbers, a link to the matching page. Start with the four videos named above.
- Add narration to the silent clips that are worth it, and do it at scale. Many of the 36 silent videos are only seconds long, or are diagrams and product demos with text on screen. Those can stay as they are. For the rest, narration can be generated rather than recorded. If your team has an ElevenLabs API key, connect it to Claude Code and give it the product PDF for each clip. Claude Code writes a short narration script from the PDF, using your figure numbers and terms, and ElevenLabs turns it into the voiceover. The same run can produce the caption file and the YouTube description. An engineer checks each script before it goes out.
- Retitle by what the viewer wants to know, and keep the product name. Start with the weak ones below. Leave the six 2016 to 2018 clips that hold 89 percent of your views until you have measured the rest.
- On the site, add a transcript and video markup to the matching page. Try the YouTube player in place of Vimeo on three pages and compare before changing the others.
Title examples
| Title today | Pattern we would use (confirm against the clip) |
|---|---|
| Hydraulic Snubbers Product Video | How a Hydraulic Snubber Works on a Piping System | PT&P |
| Slide Plates Slideshow | PTFE or Graphite Slide Plates and When to Use Each | PT&P |
| Pipe Clamps Product Video (used on this video and this one) | One title per clip, each naming the clamp type shown |
| FURNACE SPRINGS VS STANDARD SPRINGS | Furnace Springs vs Standard Springs, What Changes in the Design |
| 2016 10 06 10 00 Fabric Expansion Joints Webinar by U S Bellows, Inc | Fabric Expansion Joints Webinar on Design, Materials and Installation | U.S. Bellows |
| Exploring Plate Thickness Technial Bulleting | How Plate Thickness Is Chosen for a Pipe Support | PT&P Technical Bulletin |
Standard practice Steps 2 to 5 are established ways to be found on YouTube and in Google's video results. Their effect on AI answers is untested, and we would measure it with the same 40 questions.
7What the AI test adds to the search picture
Your Search Console numbers and the page fixes are in the SEO audit. This section holds only what the AI test changes. The SEO audit leads with the pages that lost visits. This data adds the reference pages that AI engines read.
| Finding | Evidence | What it changes |
|---|---|---|
| Google's AI results show your pages about 3,800 times a day | Search Console counted 352,673 showings of your pages inside Google's AI Overview and AI Mode in the 92 days to 4 October. Spring pages take 12% of them and expansion joint pages 1%. The page shown most is Stainless Steel Selection, 19,859 times, and it brought 42 visits | Judge these pages by whether the answer names you, as sections 1 to 5 do. Give the page shown most a route to your products. Section 10 has that change |
| Engines lean on FAQ, installation and bulletin pages | 133 pipingtech.com pages were used at least once. By type: product 49 uses, blog 37, technical bulletin 27, FAQ 26, PDF 16, service 12, video page 4. Three FAQ pages alone account for 20 | The next-step and naming fixes go to these pages first, service pages second |
| Your busiest pages in Google are mostly not the ones engines use | Of the 20 pages with the most Google clicks, 12 were used in no answer: U-bolts, clamps and risers, saddles, shoes and guides, and three blog posts | Two jobs. Commodity pages need the on-page next step from the SEO audit. Reference pages need your name on the fact |
| Question searches show you often and send few visits | 1,127 question-style searches showed your site 17,667 times in 92 days and produced 50 clicks | Consistent with answers being read on the results page. Count the mention as well as the click |
| Two heavily used pages are named "Sizing Info." and "Load and Travel" | Each was used in 4 answers. Neither heading says which product it is about | Put the product in the heading and the page title |
| Product pages carry no product or video details in the code | From our saved copy of the site, taken before 6 October. That copy also showed two main headings on product pages. Josh read the live pages on 6 October and found one, so we have dropped that point | Add product and video details in the code wherever they apply |
| Engineers still ask for the pipe shoe decision tree, and its address opens a "Gone" page | Eng-Tips threads from 2005 to 2015 that praise the shoe decision tree by name (one example) | Bring the decision tree back as a page at its old address. Section 10 covers the other old addresses |
How to use the forum research now
Group the forum questions by the job behind them, check each group against your Search Console, and add the clearest wording as a question with a short answer on the page engines already use for that topic. Not every question, and not word for word. The groups are: identify an unknown spring can, read the load, judge a corroded can, pick a shoe for insulated stainless, find a cryogenic support detail, remove travel stops.
8Fix order and decisions
- Name PT&P on the fact on the six most used reference pages, with a named engineer and a revision date.
- Add a matching next step to those six pages, then to the service pages from the SEO audit.
- Write descriptions and add captions for the four named videos, then the rest of the product and how-to videos.
- Decide who owns expansion joints and write the parent overview.
- Extend the cross-reference charts to the legacy brands your engineers can vouch for.
- Record the first narrated task video, on travel stops.
- Publish the cited catalog sections as pages and settle the founding year and the two stray subdomains.
Decisions only PT&P can make
- Which site owns expansion joints.
- Which legacy brands your engineers will sign an equivalence chart for.
- Which engineer's name goes on the reference pages.
- Whether info.pipingtech.com and devptp.pipingtech.com should be public.
- Which founding year is the one to use.
9Prompts for your team
Five prompts your team can hand to its own AI tools. Each one names its evidence, works on a draft, and stops for an engineer before anything is published.
Name the source on a reference page
Change 1. Engines used these pages and left your name out.
Show the prompt
Rules for this task. Work on a draft or a staging copy. Change only what this prompt names. Do not invent a number, a rating, a figure number, a standard clause or a customer name: if the source material does not state it, leave a marked gap. Show the draft and stop. An engineer at PT&P approves before anything is published. You are editing one PT&P reference page: [paste the page address and its full text]. Evidence: in an October 2026 test, AI answers used this page as a source and did not name Piping Technology & Products. Where PT&P was named, the sentence tied a fact to PT&P and to a document. Task: for each question or section on the page, rewrite only the first one or two sentences so they state the answer, name PT&P (or U.S. Bellows where the product is theirs), and name the figure number or document the fact comes from. Keep every technical value exactly as written. Add nothing the page does not already say. List any sentence where the source of the fact is unclear, for an engineer to confirm. Output: a two-column table, current opening and proposed opening, then the list of open questions.
Match the next step to the page
Change 2. Readers from AI answers land on FAQ and bulletin pages.
Show the prompt
Rules for this task. Work on a draft or a staging copy. Change only what this prompt names. Do not invent a number, a rating, a figure number, a standard clause or a customer name: if the source material does not state it, leave a marked gap. Show the draft and stop. An engineer at PT&P approves before anything is published. You are adding one next step to a PT&P reference page: [paste the page address and its full text]. PT&P's services, with addresses: [paste the list of service pages]. Task: say in one line what the reader of this page is trying to get done. Pick the one PT&P service that helps with that job. Write a three-line block for the body of the page: what PT&P can do for this exact problem, what the reader should have ready (for example hot load, travel, line size, a photo of the name plate), and one link. No second link, no general contact wording. Output: the block, where on the page it goes, and the one-line reason for the service you picked.
Draft a legacy cross-reference chart
Change 3. The Grinnell chart earned a first-place recommendation.
Show the prompt
Rules for this task. Work on a draft or a staging copy. Change only what this prompt names. Do not invent a number, a rating, a figure number, a standard clause or a customer name: if the source material does not state it, leave a marked gap. Show the draft and stop. An engineer at PT&P approves before anything is published. You are preparing a draft cross-reference chart from [legacy brand] spring supports to PT&P figures. Sources you may use: [attach the legacy brand's catalog pages] and [attach PT&P's catalog pages]. Use nothing else. Task: build a table with the legacy figure number, its type, load range and travel range as the legacy catalog states them, the closest PT&P figure, and the differences an engineer must check (dimensions, attachment, load range). Where the catalogs do not support a match, write NO MATCH FOUND and say why. Mark every row UNVERIFIED. Output: the table, then a list of rows you are least sure of. A PT&P engineer must confirm each row before the chart is published.
Write a YouTube description from the video
YouTube step 2. 27 of 72 videos have no description.
Show the prompt
Rules for this task. Work on a draft or a staging copy. Change only what this prompt names. Do not invent a number, a rating, a figure number, a standard clause or a customer name: if the source material does not state it, leave a marked gap. Show the draft and stop. An engineer at PT&P approves before anything is published. You are writing the YouTube description for one PT&P video: [paste the title, the address and the transcript or a shot-by-shot note of what is shown]. Matching page on pipingtech.com or usbellows.com: [paste the address]. Task: write a description of 120 to 200 words. The first two lines answer the question a viewer would type to find this video. Then the PT&P figure numbers shown, what the viewer should have ready before calling, and the link to the matching page. Suggest one title that leads with what the viewer wants to know and keeps the product name. Use only what the video shows or says. Output: the title, the description, and chapter times if the transcript supports them.
Rerun the answer check each month
Section 11. One pass is a pilot.
Show the prompt
Rules for this task. Work on a draft or a staging copy. Change only what this prompt names. Do not invent a number, a rating, a figure number, a standard clause or a customer name: if the source material does not state it, leave a marked gap. Show the draft and stop. An engineer at PT&P approves before anything is published. You are repeating PT&P's AI answer check. The questions are in the attached prompt record (40 rows). The grading rubric is attached. Task: put each question, word for word, to [the engine being tested] with web search on. Save the full answer and its sources. Grade each answer with the rubric: recommended first, listed among vendors, named as the source of a fact, linked and not named, or absent. Record which PT&P business and which page. Do not add PT&P's name to any question that does not contain it. Output: one row per question in the same columns as the attached mention table, with the date and the engine, and a list of questions whose role changed since the last run.
10Josh's findings
Josh also researched how AI answers present PT&P, and here are his findings. On 6 October he looked at Google's AI Overviews for 39 US supplier searches and 24 in Canada, the UAE, India and Saudi Arabia, and at the 214 searches where Google's AI cites pipingtech.com. Every claim was checked again on 7 October. That adds a supplier-search view to the 40 questions above, so this section covers the points not already made earlier. Josh will walk you through these findings, and we will send his full supplementary audit separately, with wording ready for your web developer.
Different questions surface different pages. In Josh's searches the most cited page is the ASME B31.3 article, while the 40 questions above drew most on the FAQ pages. Both matter for the searches they cover.
Give readers of the articles AI quotes a way to buy
Google's AI cites 77 PT&P pages, and those pages bring about half of your visits from Google. The most cited is the ASME B31.3 article. It, the snubber overview and the trunnion article have no link to a product or a quote in their text. AI also answers these topics on the results page. In the top three places, about 0.6% of searchers click on searches where AI cites PT&P, against about 1.6% on your other searches that do not include your name.
What to do. Add one product link and one "Talk to an engineer" line to each of the most cited articles, starting with those three.
Make Pipe Supports & Hangers the answer for "pipe hangers"
You sit 24th for "pipe hangers", and Google's AI leaves PT&P out of "pipe hanger manufacturers". Google showed you 2,405 times for that search in three months. The page title and main heading already say "Pipe Supports & Hangers", so renaming it will not help. The page opens straight into its category cards with no introduction. Only your MSS SP-58 page links to it with the words "pipe hanger", and no page links to it with "pipe hangers".
What to do. Add a short introduction and a "Types of Pipe Hangers" heading to the page. Link the words "pipe hanger types" on Variable Spring Supports to it.
Put the numbers AI repeats on your product pages
Where Google's AI finds a maker's sizes and loads, it quotes them. Where it finds none, it quotes a competitor's.
| Supplier search | PT&P in the answer | What the answer carries |
|---|---|---|
| variable spring hangers | Named, described only as "comprehensive custom and standard variable spring supports" | ASC's "5 travel series and 23 to 25 sizes, handling loads from 10 lbs to 50,000 lbs" and Carpenter & Paterson's "25 sizes (up to 50,000 lbs)" |
| constant spring hanger manufacturer | Not named | Other makers. PT&P developed its constant load hanger design in 1978, and Search Console has you about 4th for "constant spring support" and 5th for "constant spring hanger" |
| pipe hanger manufacturers | Not named | Other makers |
What to do. Open four product pages with one plain paragraph that says PT&P makes the part in Houston and gives its sizes and loads. Start with Constant Spring Supports. Add lead times to every product page. Your engineers supply the numbers.
Where Google's AI quotes PT&P and where it quotes competitors
PT&P or one of its companies is named in 23 of 26 supplier answers from Google's AI, and first in 18. ASC is named in 12. The AI answer sits above the results on 30 of the 39 supplier searches Josh pulled.
- AI already favours PT&P on engineered supports. Springs, snubbers, shoes and slide plates.
- ASC (Anvil) is cited on more searches overall, mostly for its own fittings, fire protection and plumbing. ASC and Empire also hold searches for products you make, such as seismic bracing and pipe stanchions.
- Carpenter & Paterson, LISEGA and Bergen are cited on 10, 5 and 2 searches.
What to do. Leave the pages on the topics you lead as they are. For each search a competitor holds where you make the product, give AI a PT&P page that answers it. Your engineers confirm each product match before anything is written.
Link your most read pages to the product pages near page one
Among your 65 most shown pages, the ASME B31.3 and trunnion articles get no links from the others. Pipe Clamps & Risers, U-Bolts, Pipe Saddles and Constant Spring Supports get 2 to 4 each. A page with few links from related pages is harder for Google to rank, however good it is.
What to do. Add one to three links in the text of each source page, on words already there, to the page that should rank for them.
Your Stainless Steel Selection page likely appears for "austenitic" (shown 8,028 times) and "austenitic stainless steel" (3,221), and it brought 43 visits. Those readers are researching steel grades. Keep the page and add one section on stainless steel pipe supports and slide plates, with links to them.
What AI tells a buyer who asks if PT&P is a good company
Google's AI praises the products and quotes employee ratings of 2.1 to 2.6 out of 5 in the same answer. Asked "is piping technology and products a good company", it calls PT&P "a well-established, reliable industrial manufacturer for business clients" and adds that it "receives generally poor reviews and low ratings from its employees". The answers for "pipe support manufacturers houston" and "pipe support fabricators near me" show your Google listing at 3.2 stars from 31 reviews.
What to do. Give AI more customer evidence than employee evidence.
- Ask buyers for Google reviews that name the part and the job, and reply to every review.
- Show the rankings and awards you already have on the homepage. They are listed further down.
- Glassdoor shows 2.7 out of 5 from 103 reviews, and PT&P has not claimed its free employer profile. Claim it, read Glassdoor's policy on asking employees for reviews, and reply to every review.
- Ask Google's AI the same question once a month and note what it says and which sources it uses.
Make your facts match everywhere AI looks
Your pages disagree about PT&P's basic facts, and AI picks one. Google's AI says "Founded in 1978". Your homepage says 1975, your About page says 1978, and a banner across the site celebrates your 50th anniversary. A search for "durga agrawal" shows no Google panel.
What to do. Agree one fact sheet and make the About page state it. Give Dr. Durga Agrawal and Rakesh Agrawal their own pages. Label the company, the people and the authors in the page code. The SEO audit has the prompt for the author names.
Links from Wikipedia and the trade press that land on dead pages
16 of 25 Wikipedia links to PT&P open a dead page, and so do 35 of 36 other broken links Josh's data lists. When the site moved to WordPress, most old .htm addresses were set to answer "gone", even /index.htm. Eleven Wikipedia articles, Machine Design, eHow and at least 7 copies of Wikipedia still link to them. You have 508 linking websites, against 189 for Carpenter & Paterson and 720 for ASC, so these links are worth getting back.
What to do. Forward each old address to the page that replaced it, starting with the ones Wikipedia and the trade press link to. Leave the Wikipedia articles alone.
Awards and industry listings
Your awards are on your site, each in its own news post. The homepage does not show the 2026 safety awards.
- Two National Safety Council awards (2026). News post
- Houston Business Journal, 26th on the 2026 Largest Manufacturing Firms list. News post
- PT&P leaders on MSS technical committees. News post
What to do. Add a short awards strip to the homepage, with each award linked to its news post.
Mechanical contractor associations list your competitors and not PT&P. NEMCA's associate members include Carpenter & Paterson, and MCA Houston lists ASC. Apply for associate or supplier membership in both. MSS already shows PT&P among its member companies, with a link to your site.
All figures in this section are Josh's. They come from Google AI Overviews, AI citations and linking websites pulled through DataForSEO on 6 and 7 October 2026, from your Search Console export for 4 July to 3 October 2026, and from pipingtech.com read in a browser. Josh did not run ChatGPT, Gemini or Perplexity. Neither audit has checked Bing, Thomasnet or GlobalSpec.
11How we tested
40 questions, four AI surfaces and Google's ordinary results, one pass on 7 October 2026. The questions came from your Search Console queries, from Eng-Tips threads, and from the buyer groups in the SEO audit. They are tagged by product line, buyer task and how much the asker already knows.
| Surface | How it was captured | Location | Answers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Google results | Serper search API | Houston, Texas | 40 |
| Google AI Overview | DataForSEO live results with the overview expanded, desktop, signed out | United States | 33 shown of 40 |
| Google AI Mode | DataForSEO AI Mode, desktop, signed out | United States | 40 |
| Perplexity | Sonar model through its API | None sent | 40 |
| GPT with web search | OpenAI's model with web search through its command line tool, with a one-sentence instruction to answer as it would for a user and list its sources. This is the model, not the ChatGPT app | None sent | 40 |
The counts and what they are counts of
| Number | What it counts |
|---|---|
| 40 | Questions asked of each surface |
| 36 | Questions left when the 4 that contain your name are taken out. Every count in sections 1, 2 and 4 uses these |
| 24 and 12 | The 36 split into engineering questions and supplier or emergency questions |
| 153 | AI answers read. 160 possible, less the 7 questions where Google showed no AI Overview |
| Roles | One per answer, the highest that applies: recommended first, listed among vendors, named as the source of a fact, linked as a source and not named, absent |
| Uses of a page | Answers that list that page among their sources. A page can be used in several answers |
Limits
- One pass. AI answers change from day to day and with wording. Treat a difference of one or two answers as nothing. The next phase is two more passes on other days, reported as ranges.
- A source link shows the engine read the page. It does not show the page shaped the answer. The "used or named for" column records what the reader could tie to your page.
- Google's ordinary results, for scale: a PT&P site was in the first three results on 32 of the 40 questions and the first ten on 38.
- Search Console figures are for pipingtech.com only, 92 days to 5 October 2026.
- YouTube figures are public page details read on 7 October 2026.