Making Lonsdale Metal the answer
AI gives for glazing bars
Lonsdale Metal have made patent glazing bars and rooflights in the UK since 1946. We measured how AI assistants describe them, found out why, and fixed what the engines were reading.
The client
Lonsdale Metal design and manufacture patent glazing bars and rooflights, with installations at Windsor Castle and the British Museum. Architects and specifiers now ask AI assistants which manufacturers to use, so Lonsdale asked us whether those assistants recommend them.
What the evidence showed
We asked eight real buyer questions across four AI platforms and traced every citation back to the page it came from. The pattern was clear.
One page did all the work
The only page with complete FAQ and Organization schema, /glazing-bars/, earned 13 AI citations on its own.
The rest was invisible to AI
Product pages with brochure-style copy and no structured data earned almost nothing, and heritage credentials sat in paragraphs AI couldn't use.
What we did
AI visibility
- Tested buyer questions across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Claude
- Benchmarked Lonsdale against named competitors and the leading retailer
- Wrote a developer-ready schema brief, checked line by line against the live page source
Search and brand
- Rebuilt and optimised the homepage
- Kept technical health tight across the glazing pages
- Brand PR with placements including On Magazine, Resident.com and 1883 Magazine
The results
Lonsdale now leads AI answers for its core product, Claude went from not knowing the brand to scoring glazing products at 84, and ‘glazing bars’ has climbed onto page one of Google. The picture is not uniform, and we show all of it.
| Measure | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| AI share of voice, patent glazing bars prompt (Oct 2026) | – | #1 (21%) |
| Glazing prompts where Lonsdale is first or joint first (Oct 2026, 12 prompts) | – | 5 of 12 |
| AI citations across 8 buyer prompts (June 2026 baseline) | – | 43 |
| Google position, 'glazing bars' | 32 | Page one |
| Google position, 'glazing bar' | 37 | 8 |
AI knowledge scores by engine, February to September 2026
| Engine | Brand overview | Glazing bars | Glazing products |
|---|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT | 85 → 0 | 81 → 84 | 81 → 85 |
| Claude | 0 → 70 | 0 → 0 | 0 → 84 |
| Gemini | 66 → 57 | 84 → 80 | 88 → 75 |
| Gemini (reading the live web) | 91 → 100 | 92 → 82 | 97 → 92 |
| Sonar (Perplexity) | 75 → 70 | 87 → 88 | 100 → 93 |
Claude moved most, from no knowledge of the brand to 84 on glazing products, but its September brand answer still describes Lonsdale as a metal stockholder. ChatGPT declined to answer the brand overview in September, and Gemini and Sonar slipped on several topics while still scoring 57 to 100. Lonsdale is also still at 0% share of voice on heritage installation, smoke ventilation, full-service and steel screening prompts. Those are the next phase: clearer entity signals and content for the products AI cannot yet connect to the brand.
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