AEO for heatmap tools: AI search visibility ranking
How AI search engines rank heatmap tools by visibility and citations. 20 brands measured quarterly across Google AI Mode: which brands the AI names in answers, which domains it cites as sources, and how the leaders compare. Analytics platforms used to visualize clicks, scroll depth, sessions, funnels, and on-page user behavior to improve conversion rates. Composite score: 70% visibility (% of AI answers naming the brand) + 30% citation rate (% citing the brand's domain). Full methodology →
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When asked about Heatmap tools, AI engines consistently name Hotjar as the leader, highlighting its strong presence with a 75.0% visibility rate. Other noteworthy tools mentioned include Microsoft Clarity and Mouseflow. These brands dominate searches for Heatmap solutions, offering a range of features tailored to customer needs.
The rankings reflect insights from top-cited sources like youtube.com, cpoclub.com, and amplitude.com. These aggregator and review sites heavily influence AI-generated recommendations by focusing on detailed user feedback and feature analyses. Their focus on hands-on user experiences reveals why certain brands surface more prominently in AI responses.
For buyers, this means placing importance on what AI engines prioritize, such as recent reviews and third-party validation. When choosing a brand, consider how widely a tool is discussed across various platforms and whether it demonstrates authority in the Heatmap subcategory. This approach ensures you select a tool with proven credibility and functionality.
At a glance
What we observed in this category
Hotjar leads the heatmap tools category with a composite score of 56.2, narrowly ahead of Microsoft Clarity at 52.5, despite both sharing a 75% visibility score. The gap matters because Hotjar carries a 12.5% citation rate while Clarity sits at 0%, meaning Google AI Mode names Clarity frequently but never anchors a source link to it. Below these two, the next ranked brand, Mouseflow, scores only 42.5, and the remaining 17 brands average well below the category visibility mean of 13.8%.
Microsoft Clarity illustrates a clear divergence between being named and being trusted as a citable source. It matches Hotjar on raw visibility yet produces zero citations, suggesting AI responses mention it descriptively but do not reference its domain as an authoritative source. Mouseflow inverts this pattern: at 50% visibility it generates a 25% citation rate, the highest in the category, indicating its content is being pulled as a reference even though it appears in fewer responses. Zoho PageSense and Plerdy show citation rates of 25% each despite zero visibility, a pattern of being cited without being named in answers.
Google AI Mode is the top engine for every brand in the dataset, confirming this category is almost entirely shaped by a single AI surface. The top cited external sources include youtube.com, g2.com, reddit.com, and amplitude.com, alongside niche properties like cpoclub.com and humblytics.com. This mix suggests AI responses in this category anchor on review platforms, video content, and practitioner-focused blogs rather than vendor documentation, which partly explains why brands with strong third-party review presence or community content earn citations despite lower direct visibility.
Movers & shakers since last refresh
Biggest visibility risers
-
Microsoft Clarity 50% → 75% · rank #3 → #2+25pp
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Mouseflow 25% → 50% · rank #6 → #3+25pp
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Contentsquare 0% → 25% · rank #13 → #4+25pp
Biggest visibility fallers
-
Smartlook 38% → 0% · rank #5 → #14-38pp
-
Crazy Egg 38% → 25% · rank #2 → #6-12pp
The AEO ranking
| # | Brand | Visibility | Citation | Top engine |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |
hotjar.com
|
75% | 12% | Google AI Mode |
Hotjar leads all brands with a composite score of 56.2 and the only non-zero citation rate among the top two, at 12.5%, despite matching Clarity on 75% visibility. |
||||
| 2 |
clarity.microsoft.com
|
75% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
Microsoft Clarity ties Hotjar on visibility at 75% but holds a 0% citation rate, making it the starkest named-but-not-cited case in the category. |
||||
| 3 |
mouseflow.com
|
50% | 25% | Google AI Mode |
Mouseflow ranks third with 50% visibility yet earns the highest citation rate in the dataset at 25%, a 19-percentage-point gap above the category average of 6.2%. |
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| 4 |
contentsquare.com
|
25% | 12% | Google AI Mode |
Contentsquare is the biggest mover in the category, jumping 9 ranks from 13th to 4th after gaining 25 visibility points from a prior baseline of zero. |
||||
| 5 |
luckyorange.com
|
25% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
Lucky Orange sits at 25% visibility and 0% citation, matching Crazy Egg exactly on both metrics and sharing a composite score of 17.5 with no differentiating signal. |
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| 6 |
crazyegg.com
|
25% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
| 7 |
zoho.com
|
0% | 25% | Google AI Mode |
| 8 |
plerdy.com
|
0% | 25% | Google AI Mode |
| 9 |
inspectlet.com
|
0% | 12% | Google AI Mode |
| 10 |
uxcam.com
|
0% | 12% | Google AI Mode |
| 11 |
quantummetric.com
|
0% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
| 12 |
vwo.com
|
0% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
| 13 |
fullstory.com
|
0% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
| 14 |
smartlook.com
|
0% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
| 15 |
glassbox.com
|
0% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
| 16 |
medallia.com
|
0% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
| 17 |
ptengine.com
|
0% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
| 18 |
freshworks.com
|
0% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
| 19 |
attentioninsight.com
|
0% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
| 20 |
heap.io
|
0% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
Sources AI engines trust in this category
Across the 8 buyer-intent queries we ran on heatmap tools, these are the domains Google AI Mode cited most often. If you're not on this list — or if your competitors are — that's a concrete PR / linkbuilding target.
How to read this AEO ranking
Four things worth knowing before you act on the numbers above. These are the same definitions across every industry page — for category-specific observations, see the What we observed section above (where available) and the per-brand insights inline in the ranking.
Visibility = being named
A brand's visibility % is the share of AI answers that mention it by name in the response prose. This is who AI engines actively recommend to the buyer. More on visibility →
Citation rate = being trusted
Citation rate is the share of AI answers that include the brand's domain as a clickable source link. This is what the AI treats as authoritative evidence, different from being named. More on citation rate →
Top engine differs by brand
The "top engine" column shows which AI surface each brand performs best on. Big gaps between a brand's score across engines usually points to specific content or schema gaps. How AI engines pick sources →
AEO rankings move month to month
AI engines re-crawl and re-rank on shorter cycles than classical search. We re-audit every brand on this list at least every 90 days and refresh this page automatically. How AI search ranking works →
Run an AEO audit on your own heatmap tools brand
The brands above were curated from public market-leader lists. Want the same answer engine optimisation measurement against your own brand — including the queries you appear on, which competitors get named instead, and a prioritised fix list? Run a free preview.
Frequently asked about AEO for heatmap tools
Who leads AI visibility in heatmap tools?
Hotjar and Microsoft Clarity are tied at 75% visibility, but Hotjar leads on composite score (56.2 vs 52.5) due to its 12.5% citation rate against Clarity's 0%.
Which heatmap tool is most cited by Google AI Mode?
Mouseflow has the highest citation rate in the category at 25%, exceeding Hotjar's 12.5% and the category average of 6.2%, despite lower overall visibility.
What external sources does Google AI Mode anchor on for heatmap tool research?
The top cited sources include youtube.com, g2.com, reddit.com, amplitude.com, and niche practitioner sites like cpoclub.com and humblytics.com, favouring review and community content over vendor pages.
Which brands have gained the most AI visibility recently in this category?
Contentsquare gained 25 visibility points and jumped 9 ranks, while Microsoft Clarity and Mouseflow each added 25 visibility points in the most recent period.
Are any brands cited by AI despite having no visibility in heatmap tools?
Yes. Zoho PageSense and Plerdy both carry 0% visibility but 25% citation rates each, meaning their domains appear as references without the brands being named in AI answers.
Which brands have lost the most AI visibility in heatmap tools?
Smartlook dropped 37.5 visibility points and fell from rank 5 to rank 14, while Crazy Egg fell 4 places and lost 50 percentage points of citation rate alongside a 12.5-point visibility decline.