The original 20-platform ecosystem list, researched one by one against July 2026 reality (four parallel research passes, sources at the foot). Companion to the off-site & AI-citation board and the Authority Framework. Core finding: only some platforms reward presence (a claimed, complete, interlinked profile); most reward participation, which is the posting treadmill we retired. We build the presence nodes, skip the treadmills, and treat the existing Google profiles as grandfathered assets to maintain, not gamble.
| # | Platform | Verdict | Why (one line) | Value | Who |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Medium | Top-5 most-cited domain in ChatGPT (Semrush 100M-citation study). Author profile + 1–3 genuinely human evergreen posts (canonical import OK), then dormant; dormancy is safe here. Undisclosed AI writing gets zero distribution, so posts must be real. | MED | Me draft · authors approve | |
| 2 | Substack | SKIP | Feed-centric: a one-post newsletter reads dead (dates + subscriber counts are the UI). Only if an author genuinely wants to write one; that is content strategy, not an entity checkbox. | LOW | — |
| 3 | Blogger | KEEP — PARKED | Adam's call 22 Jul: keep the existing blogspot properties rather than delete. Rechecked: still absent from every 2025–26 citation study, so expect zero direct value — the honest ceiling is a parked link node. One consistency pass (brand name/logo, link to the site), then no posting, ever. | ZERO–LOW | Me: one consistency pass |
| 4 | Quora | Major Google AI Overviews / AI Mode citation source. Personal profile per author with credential line + 3–5 genuinely expert answers in-niche, then leave it; answers keep surfacing for years. No brand accounts (policed as promotion). | MED | Authors post · me: drafts + question shortlist | |
| 5 | REMOVED | Out at Adam's call, 22 Jul. (Context kept for the record: 99% of Reddit AI citations are threads, never profiles, so presence was only ever worth a defensive username claim anyway.) | — | — | |
| 6 | Google My Business | KEEP + MAINTAIN | Existing profiles = grandfathered assets (see box above). Inventory them, keep details stable and site-consistent, respond to reviews, automate light weekly Posts. New profiles only where genuinely eligible; a failed re-verification or suspension is a durable negative signal. Note 22 Jul: the old Entity Stack plan was never "GBP for all brands" — it was eligibility-gated and mostly unexecuted, and no inventory of current holdings exists yet. | MED | Adam: inventory + logins · me: consistency audit + Posts automation |
| 7 | Google Account | DO — foundation | One operator Google identity per Ltd on a company domain; humans added as least-privilege managers. This is the hub GBP and YouTube both hang off: it holds the brand GBPs, owns the YouTube Brand-Account channels (up to 100 per account; rank4ai / MerchantHQ / MarketInvoice / PeptideClear already run, FundBiz + Kartapay pending), and the Merchant Center account for product feeds. Which login owns which channel today is undocumented — map it in the Wave 1 inventory. | FOUNDATION | Adam ~1–2h per Ltd · me: structure doc |
| 8 | REMOVED | Out at Adam's call, 22 Jul. No brand pages get created; dormant pages are hijack targets anyway, so removing it also removes a maintenance liability. | — | — | |
| 9 | Wikidata | DO — carefully | Best-evidenced feed into Google Knowledge Graph + LLM grounding. One item per Ltd (not per site), referenced to Companies House (P8933 / OpenCorporates IDs are the anti-deletion signal), neutral description, warmed-up editor account, built over 2–3 weeks. A deleted item is worse than none. | HIGH | Me, staged |
| 10 | Foursquare | REMOVED | Out at Adam's call, 22 Jul (research agreed: consumer app shut Dec 2024, dead node for an online-only fleet). | — | — |
| 11 | Trustpilot | DO — top pick | The only node with measured AI-answer lift: no profile ≈1% presence in AI answers vs ≈54% with a claimed profile + ~13 reviews, ≈75% active (Trustpilot/SEER, 800k responses; directional but corroborated: most-cited review platform in ChatGPT). Claim every lead-gen domain, complete profile, then neutral post-lead invitations (50/mo free). Adam's concern (22 Jul): "we won't get reviews" — fair, but the lift threshold is only ~13 reviews and the lead flow exists to feed automated post-lead invitation emails; a claimed profile with a handful of real reviews beats unclaimed. The rule is just that claiming commits us to the invitation flow, because claimed-and-empty reads thin. UK DMCC = no cherry-picking anyway. | HIGH | Adam: claim emails · me: profile completion + invitation flow design |
| 12 | DO — product brands | Flipped 22 Jul for the two selling brands. Still not an AI-citation node (absent from every study), but the 2026 ecommerce data is genuinely good: evergreen pins, ~85% of weekly Pinners buy off brand Pins, audience fit for women's health. Setup = business account + claimed domain + catalog feed (Shopify's Pinterest app auto-syncs ADHD Helper; HerVitals when its shop is live). Copy must stay claim-free — supplements are allowed but health/weight-loss claims are not, and paid ads are effectively off the table (strictest health policy, no certification pathway). Nothing for finance. | MED (traffic, product brands) | Me: accounts + feeds · Adam/Oliver: Shopify app connect | |
| 13 | DO — the #1 | #5 most-cited domain in ChatGPT; ~15% of Google AI Mode responses cite it; uniquely, profiles and company pages get cited directly (18% of LinkedIn citations are company pages). Microsoft-owned so deeply Bing-indexed = the ChatGPT lane. Company page per brand + verified personal profile per author + 1–2 evergreen articles each. | HIGH | Adam + authors · me: page copy, article drafts | |
| 14 | Apple Maps | MERGED → #18 | Rechecked 22 Jul on Adam's "I think we can do them": a place card still requires a verifiable physical street address (docs or phone verification; PO boxes excluded) even after the Apr 2026 Apple Business relaunch, and a grandfathered GBP transfers no entitlement — Apple verifies independently. So of the three maps: Google = already ours (the GBP), Microsoft = yes via import (#17), Apple = the one we genuinely can't hold without premises. The brand-identity half of Apple Business (#18) is what we take instead. | — | — |
| 15 | Google Maps | MERGED → #6 | Same asset as GBP; the Maps listing IS the Business Profile. Keep + maintain. | — | — |
| 16 | Microsoft Maps | MERGED → #17 | Same thing as Bing Places; rides the GBP import — and yes, we can do this one (confirmed 22 Jul, see #17). | — | — |
| 17 | Bing Places | DO — via GBP import | Confirmed 22 Jul: Bing Places was relaunched Oct 2025 (bing.com/forbusiness) with a faster one-shot GBP import (name / address / hours / categories / photos) plus opt-in auto-sync — update the GBP and Bing follows. ~10 minutes per brand that holds a GBP; skip for the rest. Feeds Copilot's local answers. Separately: wire Bing Webmaster Tools' AI Performance report into tracking (the 14-domain Bing monitor already runs). | LOW-MED | Me, once the GBP inventory exists |
| 18 | Apple Businessformerly Business Connect; covers Apple Maps identity + Siri/Spotlight | DO | Explicitly open to fully-online businesses since Oct 2024 (renamed Apple Business, Apr 2026). Free platform-verified legal-entity node per Ltd + Branded Mail (logo + verified name on our emails in Apple Mail; needs SPF/DKIM/DMARC at quarantine or reject). #1 rejection cause: D-U-N-S record mismatching Companies House, so D-U-N-S first. | MED | Adam: Apple ID + register · me: DNS/DMARC + logo prep |
| 19 | Apple Spotlight | MERGED → #18 | Siri / Spotlight / Apple Intelligence surface businesses from the Apple Business registry; no separate action exists. | — | — |
| 20 | Crunchbase | DO — downgraded | Half-done already (checked 22 Jul): person profiles exist for Adam (crunchbase.com/person/adam-parker-e9fa) and Derren, and sit in fleet schema sameAs. What does NOT exist yet is any organisation profile — that's the remaining 30 min per Ltd. Value stays downgraded: robots.txt blocks GPTBot / ClaudeBot / Perplexity for all but a ~1,000-org allowlist, so this is Google Knowledge Panel corroboration + a Wikidata reference, not direct LLM visibility. | MED | Me: org profiles |
Rule of thumb from the citation data: surfaces where trust attaches to a person (Medium, Quora, and LinkedIn's most-cited unit) go under Adam as the named author. Registry, review and maps surfaces go under the business. LinkedIn is deliberately both.
| Node | Under | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Google My Business / Maps | BUSINESS | A business surface; hold the existing profiles under the brand, owned by the per-Ltd operator Google account with Adam as manager. |
| Bing Places | BUSINESS | Mirrors the GBP via import; same identity. |
| Apple Business | BUSINESS | Verifies the legal entity (BBL Ltd, Muswell Rose); there is no author role in the registry. |
| Trustpilot | BUSINESS | Reviews accrue to the brand domain; an individual can't hold them. |
| BUSINESS | Brand business account per product brand (ADHD Helper now, HerVitals at shop launch); the asset is the claimed domain + catalog feed, not a person. | |
| Crunchbase | BUSINESS | Org profile per Ltd (the missing half); Adam + Derren person profiles already exist — link them as founder/director on the org profile. |
| Wikidata | BUSINESS first | Company items now (Companies House-referenced, machine-verifiable). An Adam Person item only later, once independent press references exist — person items without external sources get deleted, and a deletion log is worse than waiting. |
| + BUSINESS | Both, and personal first: ~25% of LinkedIn AI citations are personal profiles vs 18% company pages. Verified Adam profile + evergreen articles under his name; company page per brand as the corroboration node. Derren's personal profile for payments (pending consent). | |
| Medium | Author-trust surface; the profile and byline are the asset. Brand publications add nothing here. | |
| Quora | Personal profile with a credential line ("Founder & MD, Muswell Rose"); brand accounts get policed as promotion. Derren for payments questions. | |
| Google operator account · D-U-N-S | BUSINESS | Per-Ltd infrastructure; Adam is a manager on it, never the identity. |
BBL Ltd already has 234324824, live in JSON-LD schema on 14 fleet sites (accreditations.ts + site.manifest.ts). Remaining: Muswell Rose needs its own number for MortgageExplained (BBL's number would be wrong there), plus company-rescue once the LTD Turnaround entity settles. Free; decline the paid upsell.
Bing side is already covered: the 14-domain index monitor runs on the WMT API daily. The AI Performance report (Copilot citation data, public preview Feb 2026) is the one unwired piece — add it to the AI-visibility tracker.
Channels already running: rank4ai, MerchantHQ, MarketInvoice (@thetouchfinancial), PeptideClear; FundBiz + Kartapay pending (need channel + OAuth). The gap is structural: no doc maps which Google login owns which channel — that mapping goes in the Wave 1 inventory so channels end up under the per-Ltd operator accounts.
| Unit | Nodes |
|---|---|
| Per Ltd companyBest Business Loans Ltd · Muswell Rose | Google operator account · D-U-N-S · Apple Business (+ Branded Mail on sender domains) · Wikidata item · Crunchbase profile |
| Per brand / siteFundBiz · MerchantHQ · MarketInvoice · LTD Turnaround · MortgageExplained · HerVitals · ADHD Helper · (ReplacementHQ at launch) | Trustpilot claim (lead-gen domains) · LinkedIn company page · YouTube Brand channel · Pinterest business account (product brands) · Organization schema sameAs wiring |
| Per authorAdam (finance + general) · Derren (payments, pending consent) · Oliver (where relevant) | LinkedIn profile (verified) + 1–2 evergreen articles · Medium profile + 1–3 posts · Quora profile + 3–5 expert answers · bios matching on-site author pages word-for-word |
| Wave | What | Split |
|---|---|---|
| Wave 1now | Google-estate inventory: which brand holds which GBP under which login, PLUS which login owns which YouTube channel (undocumented today) + consistency audit vs sites · Trustpilot claims on the 5 lead-gen domains + post-lead invitation flow design · LinkedIn company pages + Adam profile upgrade · Google operator-account structure per Ltd · Muswell Rose D-U-N-S lookup (BBL's is done and in schema) | Me: all prep, copy, flow design, audit · Adam: GBP logins, claim emails, ~2–3h total |
| Wave 2next | Bing Places import + auto-sync from each existing GBP · GBP weekly Posts automation (subscription-run) · Apple Business registration both Ltds + Branded Mail DNS · Crunchbase org profiles (person profiles already exist — link Adam/Derren as founder/director) · Pinterest business account + Shopify catalog feed for ADHD Helper · fleet-wide sameAs schema wiring (every profile listed in every site's Organization/Person schema) | Me: everything except account creation · Adam: Apple ID, page creation clicks |
| Wave 3slow burn, 2–4 weeks | Wikidata (warm the editor account, then the two Ltd items, staged references) · Medium + Quora author content (real writing, author sign-off) · Bing AI Performance wired into the AI-visibility tracker · Blogger parked-properties consistency pass (branding + link to site, no posting) · HerVitals Pinterest at shop launch | Me, with author approvals |
| Neverand why | NEW GBP / Bing Places profiles for brands that don't already hold one (ineligible online-only; suspension = negative signal) · destabilising edits to the existing GBPs (re-verification trap) · Foursquare, Facebook, Reddit (removed 22 Jul) · Substack (dormancy liability) · Pinterest for finance sites (no footprint, strict health/finance ad rules) · Blogger posting (parked properties only) · any posting treadmill on any of the above | — |