Manage your questions and themes

SetupUpdated 1 Oct 2026

Setup, Questions lists every question BotSay asks the engines for you, with how often each one names you. Add, reword, stop and tidy questions there, and an admin groups them into themes. Each active question is asked on every engine at every weekly reading (see When readings happen).

What does the Questions page show? #

The Questions page shows one row per question, with how often each one named you and who was named instead.

At the top: a line such as "165 questions in 7 themes, asked of 6 engines every week", the links Suggest questions, Tidy my questions and Manage themes (admins only), and the button Add questions.

The table has three columns.

Question, with its theme and class under it, for example "Alternatives. Open".
Named you: answers that named you out of answers read, such as "3 of 12". It reads "Nothing to read yet" before any answer has come back, and "No brand set" if no brand is marked as yours.
Named instead: the two rivals named most, such as "Novaly 8, Pinefield 5", or "Nobody else named".

It shows 25 rows a page. The counts cover the last 12 weeks of readings.

What do the state chips mean? #

The chips filter the list by how often you are named, and each shows a count. A chip with no questions is left out unless it is the one selected.

All: every question being asked.
Never: answered, and you are never named in it.
Sometimes: you are named in some answers and not others.
Every time: you are named in every answer BotSay read.
Nothing yet: no readable answer has come back.
Cannot tell: answered, but no brand is marked as yours. It replaces Never, Sometimes and Every time until you mark one. Set your brand, sites and rivals has the steps.
Stopped: questions you stopped asking. They are listed only here, not under All.

Type in Search to match a question's words or its theme, then use the three menus. Each applies as soon as you choose and starts again on page 1.

Theme: Every theme, or one theme.
Class: Every class, Brand, Rival or Open.
Order: Most to gain first (the questions with the most pages to get onto, as listed on Where to get in), Fewest answers first, Most recent first or A to Z.

If the filters leave nothing, the table names every filter that is on and offers Clear the filters.

What do Brand, Rival and Open mean? #

A question's class says who its own words name: Brand names you, Rival names a rival and not you, Open names nobody on your lists. It comes from the words and never from the answers.

Brand: the words name your brand or one of its other names. "Is Tessera cheaper than Novaly?" is Brand, whatever else it names.
Rival: the words name a rival you track, and not you. "Novaly pricing" is Rival.
Open: the words name nobody on your lists. "Best invoicing tools for small teams" is Open.

The first match wins. Matching is on whole words and ignores capitals. A question that names a rival you have not added yet reads as Open until you track that rival. What the five measures mean says which classes are counted.

Add questions #

Press Add questions, enter one question per line, choose a theme and press the add button.

Press Add questions.
In the box labelled Questions, type or paste one question per line, written the way a buyer would ask.
Pick a Theme.
Press the button, which reads Add 3 questions once there are three lines.

One line under the box says how many you are adding and what you will have, for example "3 questions. You will have 63 of 150." If a line looks close to a question you already ask, it names it and offers Compare, which opens your list in a new tab. Nothing is added until you press the button.

New questions are asked from the next reading. A question already on your list, asked or stopped, is skipped and counted as a duplicate, not as a failure.

Add questions from a file #

In the Add questions dialog, press Upload a CSV instead. The file needs a column headed Question and a column headed Theme, one question per row.

BotSay checks every row before it adds any. If one row has a problem, nothing is imported and each problem is listed with its line number. One unknown theme is reported once, with the number of rows that use it, not once per row.

Each question can be up to 500 characters, cannot end a line with a backslash, and needs a theme that is already in your list. If there are no themes yet, add one first under Manage themes.

What is the question limit, and what happens at it? #

Your plan sets how many questions you can ask at once, and BotSay stops an addition that would pass it. The plans and their limits are on the pricing page. If BotSay has set a different number for your workspace, the dialog shows that number after "of".

Only questions being asked count. A stopped question does not, so Stop asking makes room.

The limit is checked as you add. If a batch does not fit, nothing is added and you see, for example, "You can ask up to 60 questions and you ask 58 now, so you can add 2 more, not 5. Add fewer, or stop asking some first." At the limit it says "Stop asking one before you add another." Starting a stopped question again is held to the same limit.

What can I do with one question? #

Select a question in the list and a panel opens beside it. It shows the question, one sentence on whether you were named and who was named instead, a table of each engine (Engine, Named you, Answers), and the links Open the question, Read the answers and Close.

Under those are Change theme, Reword and Stop asking. Change theme opens a dialog with a Theme menu and Save.

For a stopped question the panel says "This question is stopped. It is not asked, and the answers it has are kept." and offers Start asking again, which asks it from the next reading.

Reword a question #

Reword stops the old question, keeps its answers, and starts the new wording as a new question in the same theme. A question's words never change, because the same words go to the engines every time.

Select the question and press Reword.
Type the new wording.
Press Ask this instead.

It is asked from the next reading. If the old question stopped and the new wording could not be saved, the dialog says "This question is stopped and no new wording was saved." and offers Start the old question again. Use it, or close the dialog and try the new wording later.

Stop asking a question #

Select the question and press Stop asking. The dialog Stop asking this question? says "It is not asked from the next reading. The answers it already has are kept, and you can start it again from Stopped in this list." Confirm with Stop asking.

Stop asking is how a question leaves the list today. To bring one back, open the Stopped chip, select it and press Start asking again.

What is on a single question's page? #

Press Open the question to reach a single question's page, which shows its Mention rate, who is named and the answers. The heading is the question, and the line under it gives its theme, the market it is asked in and its class, for example "Alternatives. Asked in the United Kingdom. Names a rival."

The lead figure is Mention rate on this question, with the tally behind it: "3 of 12 answers, over 4 readings. Anything between 9% and 53% would look the same at this many answers." Work from the count: the range shows what that many answers can tell apart.

A What to do card gives up to two links: See the pages (cited pages that do not name you) and Read (how the leading rival is described).

Four tabs follow: Who is named, By reading, Pages cited and Answers. Answers are listed 10 to a page.

Mark an Open question as naming a rival #

On the question's page, press Mark as naming a rival and an Open question is counted as Rival. The line under What to do says how the question is counted, for example "Counted as Open." Remove the competitor mark undoes it.

A Brand question cannot be marked, and the mark does not remove anything. Use it when a question names a rival BotSay does not track yet.

Suggest questions #

Suggest questions drafts questions from your homepage, your rivals and what people search for. It appears once you have finished setting up. Add your website under Setup, Brands first, so there is something to draft from.

An admin presses Suggest questions (Suggest more questions once some are waiting). Drafting takes a minute or two, and your workspace can ask for three batches a day.

Each suggestion shows a group label, such as About your brand, with Add and Not this one. Add opens a theme menu on that row, set to the best match, and Add to this theme confirms. A count line shows "165 of 200 questions" and "7 more would take you to 172". At the limit it says "None more fit: 200 is your limit". Members see the suggestions and an admin decides.

Tidy my questions #

Tidy my questions lists pairs of overlapping questions and lets you decide each pair. The overlap test is narrow: two questions that are the same wording except that one has a hyphen where the other has a space, for example "Is Tessera HIPAA-compliant?" and "Is Tessera HIPAA compliant?". It does not see a different order, a synonym or a plural.

Each pair has Merge and Keep both. Merge keeps the older question as it is and stops the newer one, and the answers the newer one has stay with it. Keep both stops that pair coming back. Nothing changes until you press one.

With none, the page says "None of your 165 questions overlap, so there is nothing to tidy."

Manage themes #

Admins open Manage themes (Setup, Themes) to add and rename the groups a question can be given. Every question needs a theme from this list.

Add a theme: type a name and press Add. Up to 255 characters, with no quote marks or backslashes.
Rename: type the new name and press Save. Every question on the theme moves to it. Charts of earlier weeks keep the name they were measured under. A rename onto an existing name is declined, because it would merge two themes.
Also on your questions, but not in your list: names on questions that your list lacks. If no active question uses one, pick a theme and press Move them.

You cannot delete a theme. To empty one, move its questions to another theme. Brand, Rival and Open cannot be used as theme names until 14 Dec 2026, because they are the classes.

Who can do what with questions and themes? #

Admins and members can add questions, change a theme, reword, stop and start asking, merge or keep pairs in Tidy and mark a question as naming a rival.

Only admins can press Suggest questions and decide each suggestion, open Manage themes, and add or rename themes. Members can see the suggestions.

Tessera, Novaly, Pinefield, Kestrel Pay and Orbita are invented brands, used here as examples.