Projects

AI visibility doesn't improve on its own. It improves because someone publishes better content, earns a placement in a respected outlet, or restructures a site to be more machine-readable. The Projects dashboard lets you connect those specific efforts to measurable outcomes, so you can prove what worked, justify the investment, and plan what to do next.

Why Projects Matter

Without a project, your AI visibility data is a stream of numbers with no narrative. Metrics go up or down, but you can't answer the question your stakeholders care about: did this work?

A project creates that link. It defines what you're doing, when you started, what success looks like, and which prompts to monitor. Spyglasses then tracks everything within that scope and alerts you when a goal is achieved.

For SEO and AEO Professionals

You're optimizing pages to appear in AI-generated responses; rewriting content for machine readability, adding structured data, improving topical authority. But AI visibility is noisy. Metrics fluctuate report to report because AI outputs are non-deterministic.

Projects help you cut through that noise:

• Before/after framing: Set a start date when you publish optimized content, then filter your Historical Metrics and Citation Intelligence dashboards to that project's date range. Instead of looking at all-time data with dozens of confounding factors, you see the impact of this specific effort.
• Page-level goal tracking: Link a page group to an SEO project. The moment any page in that group is cited by an AI platform, the goal is marked as achieved and you get an email notification. No more manually checking reports to see if your work landed.
• Prompt scoping: Assign only the discovery queries relevant to this effort. If you're optimizing for "best CRM for small teams," you don't need results from your broader query library cluttering the picture.

For PR and Communications Teams

You're running earned media campaigns; pitching stories, securing coverage, building relationships with journalists and publishers. Traditional PR measurement tracks placements and impressions. But in an AI-first search landscape, the real question is: are AI platforms citing the publications that covered us?

Projects let you answer that:

• Publisher tracking: Add the domains of publications where you're seeking or have secured coverage (e.g., techcrunch.com, forbes.com). When an AI platform cites one of those publishers in response to a relevant query, the goal is hit.
• Campaign measurement: A PR campaign has a defined timeline. Create a project with start and end dates that match your campaign window, and filter dashboards to see exactly how AI visibility changed during and after the push.
• Client reporting: The project detail page shows goals, prompts, annotations, and links to filtered dashboard views. Everything you need to build a campaign report showing the connection between outreach work and AI visibility outcomes.

Quick-Start: Creating Projects from Other Dashboards

You don't always need to start from the Projects page. Two other dashboards have one-click shortcuts that skip the manual setup and pre-populate the form for you.

From the AI Readiness Audit (SEO Projects)

After a site audit completes, look for the folder icon in the audit card header. Clicking it:

1. Creates a page group containing all pages from the audit, named Audit – [date]
2. Opens the New Project form with type pre-set to SEO and the new page group already selected

This is the natural next step after an audit: you've identified the pages you want to optimize — now create a project to track whether that work results in AI citations.

From Citation Intelligence (PR Projects)

In the Citation Intelligence dashboard, the Top Third-Party Citation Sources table has checkboxes on each row. Select the domains you want to monitor and click the Create PR Project button that appears:

1. Opens the New Project form with type pre-set to PR
2. All selected domains are pre-filled as publisher targets

This is useful when you've identified which third-party sites are generating AI citations in your space and want to start an outreach or monitoring campaign around them.

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Creating a Project

Navigate to Projects in the property sidebar under Configuration, then click New Project.

Step 1: Choose a Project Type

The project type determines what goals are available. You can always track core metrics regardless of type.

Step 2: Add Details

• Name (optional): A recognizable label like "Q1 Content Refresh" or "Product Launch Media Push"
• Description (optional): Context for your team about what this project covers
• Start Date: Defaults to today. Set it to when the effort began for accurate before/after comparison
• End Date (optional): Set this for time-boxed campaigns. Leave blank for ongoing efforts — you can complete the project later

Step 3: Set Goals

For SEO projects, select a page group. Page groups are managed in the Property Pages dashboard. When any page in this group appears as a citation in an AI response to one of your tracked prompts, the goal is marked as achieved.

If you haven't created page groups yet, you'll be prompted to do so first.

For PR projects, enter publisher domains you want to track (e.g., techcrunch.com, wsj.com). You can add multiple domains. When any of these publishers appears as a citation source in an AI response, the goal is hit.

General projects don't have specific citation goals. They're for tracking overall metric movement.

Step 4: Assign Prompts

Select which discovery queries should run nightly for this project. Only prompts assigned to active projects are executed, so this controls both what gets tracked and your prompt usage.

Choose prompts that are relevant to what you're optimizing for. If you're optimizing content about CRM solutions, assign CRM-related queries, not your full library.

Understanding the Project Detail View

After creating a project, the detail page shows:

Overview

The project header displays type, status, date range, and quick links to View Metrics (Historical Metrics dashboard filtered to this project) and Citations (Citation Intelligence dashboard filtered to this project).

Goals

Each goal shows its current status:

• Pending: No citation match detected yet
• Hit: A citation matching the goal criteria was found. Shows the date of the first hit and a link to the cited URL
• Missed: The project was completed without this goal being achieved

When a goal is achieved, Spyglasses automatically creates an annotation marking the date and sends an email notification to your team.

Assigned Prompts

Lists the discovery queries running nightly for this project. You can remove prompts that are no longer relevant.

Annotations

Shows all annotations tied to this project, both manual entries and auto-generated ones (like goal achievements). These same annotations appear as diamond markers on your time-series charts.

Using Projects with Other Dashboards

One of the most powerful features of projects is the ability to filter other dashboards by project.

From the project detail page, click View Metrics or Citations to open the corresponding dashboard with the date range automatically set to the project's start and end dates and the project filter applied.

You can also apply a project filter directly on the Historical Metrics or Citation Intelligence dashboards using the project dropdown. This narrows all charts to the project's date window, giving you a focused view of metrics during that specific effort.

Managing Project Lifecycle

Active Projects

Active projects have their assigned prompts run nightly. Keep a project active while the effort is ongoing and you want continued monitoring.

Completing a Project

When the work is done, click Complete on the project detail page. This sets the end date to today and moves the project to a completed state. Completed project prompts stop running nightly, but all historical data remains accessible.

Reactivating

If you need to extend a completed project, click Reactivate. This clears the end date and resumes nightly prompt execution.

Archiving

Archive projects you no longer need in your active view. Archived projects retain all data but won't appear in the default project list.

Best Practices

Start the Project Before the Work

Create the project and assign prompts a few days before you publish optimized content or launch a campaign. This establishes a baseline in the metrics that you can compare against.

Keep Prompt Assignments Focused

Assign 3-7 prompts that directly relate to what you're optimizing. Assigning your entire query library dilutes the signal and uses more of your nightly prompt budget.

Use Descriptive Names

"Q1 Blog Refresh: CRM Category Pages" is far more useful than "Project 1" when you're reviewing results three months later or generating reports for stakeholders.

One Effort Per Project

Resist the temptation to bundle multiple unrelated efforts into one project. If you're doing an SEO content refresh and a PR campaign at the same time, create two projects. This lets you attribute metric changes to the right effort.

Review After Two Weeks

AI visibility changes take time to materialize. Don't check daily and get discouraged. Set a reminder to review the project's filtered metrics two weeks after making changes, then again at four weeks. Look for sustained trends, not single-report jumps.

Related

• Historical Metrics — Track trends over time, filterable by project
• Citation Intelligence — Analyze citation patterns, filterable by project; create PR projects from top sources
• AI Readiness Audit — Audit pages for AI readiness; create SEO projects from audit results
• Annotations — Mark important dates on your charts
• Discovery Queries — Manage the prompts assigned to projects
• Property Pages — Create page groups for SEO project goals