Greenlens/memory/project_summary.md

GreenLns Project Memory

Product/Funnel Decisions

• There is no Free tier anymore.
• The app should be treated as Pro/paywalled by default.
• Demo/fake scan should not be positioned as a free product tier.
• Planned Aha moment: allow limited real Plant-ID starter scans if implemented, but not as an ongoing Free plan.
• Health Check remains paid/Pro gated.
• Paid use case of interest: Standort-Check / Light Meter as a Pro feature.

AI-SEO Positioning and Query Signals (July 2026)

• Treat GreenLens primarily as a plant diagnosis and next-step care app, not only as a plant identifier: identify a plant from a photo, assess visible symptoms, recommend safe care actions, and support ongoing care/reminders.
• The core user question to serve across landing pages, answer blocks, and product copy is: "What is wrong with my houseplant, and what should I do next?"
• The strongest English intent clusters observed in AI-search research are commercial/comparative: best plant diagnosis app, best AI plant diagnosis app, plant disease identifier app, best app to diagnose sick plants, and plant care app with disease diagnosis.
• The strongest symptom language to target is: yellow leaves, brown spots, pests, drooping/wilting stems, and sick houseplants. Build useful symptom pages around these queries, each linking naturally to the diagnosis workflow.
• Key German intent opportunities: Pflanzenkrankheiten App, kranke Pflanze erkennen, Pflanzendiagnose App, Zimmerpflanzen Schädlinge erkennen, alongside existing plant-ID and care-app pages.
• The distinct GreenLens narrative is: Symptom -> practical next step -> follow-up health check. Support it with plant identification, individual care plans, and reminders.
• Likely comparison entities are PictureThis, Planta, Plantum, Plant Parent, PlantIn, and Agrio. Comparison content must be balanced, use transparent criteria, and avoid unsupported claims about competitors.
• Trust is a priority: GreenLens may be framed as newer with less independent evidence. Improve credibility with a visible methodology, honest diagnostic limitations and confidence handling, real App Store/Play Store signals, example diagnoses, and follow-up results.
• AI-citable content should use a direct answer beneath the H1, concise definition/method blocks, transparent feature or comparison tables, "Choose GreenLens if / not the right fit if" guidance, natural-language FAQs, visible update dates, and relevant internal links.
• This research is directional query/crawl evidence only. It does not establish keyword search volume, rankings, or diagnostic accuracy; validate priorities using Search Console, rank tracking, and user feedback before making performance claims.

AI-SEO Citation Mechanism: Self-Citation vs Third-Party Citation (2026-07-22)

Analysis of a user-provided ChatGPT-search query log (multiple "best plant diagnosis app" variants) revealed the mechanism behind when GreenLens Pro gets cited vs omitted:

• Generic head queries ("best plant diagnosis app 2026", "best AI plant diagnosis app", "best plant disease identifier app", "best app to diagnose sick plants") make the model search for third-party validation of the established competitive set: App Store/Play Store listings, "official [App] features/pricing" for PictureThis, Planta, Plantum, PlantIn, Agrio. GreenLens has no independent footprint there yet, so on most of these variants no app is named with a source at all, or GreenLens appears only as a secondary "alternative" flagged with a "less independent testing" caveat.
• Long-tail queries that closely echo GreenLens's own landing-page titles/slugs ("plant care app with disease diagnosis" ~ pflanzen-pflege-app / plant-identifier-app) trigger the model to search for "GreenLens Pro" by name directly and crawl greenlenspro.com pages itself (self-citation), skipping third-party sources entirely.
• Conclusion: current AI visibility is 100% self-sourced (own domain only). This works for exact-match long-tail phrasing but does not scale to competitive head terms, where the model reaches for brands with independent corroboration instead. This validates and sharpens the existing "Off-Site AI-SEO Presence" plan in audits/seo-ai-seo-roadmap.md — the priority gap is not more on-site pages, it's building the third-party layer (App Store/Play Store reviews, independent roundups, Reddit/Quora mentions, YouTube) that the model pulls from on generic queries.
• Next step when picking this up again: run a fresh AI-visibility check (Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity) against the priority query list in audits/seo-ai-seo-roadmap.md → "AI Visibility Monitoring Plan", specifically noting for each query whether the citation is self-sourced (greenlenspro.com) or third-party, to track progress on closing the third-party gap.