A clearer view of public spending
SeeThroughNY (seethroughny.net) scores 69 out of 100 on Brand Analyzer, placing it in the Developing tier among Government brands, Non-profit brands, in the 32nd percentile of 16422 Government brands.
SeeThroughNY is a government transparency website sponsored by the Empire Center for Public Policy, a New York-based nonprofit. It provides free, searchable databases detailing public payroll, pension, and contract data across New York's state and local government entities. The site's mission is to give New Yorkers a clearer view of how their tax dollars are spent, serving taxpayers, journalists, researchers, and policymakers interested in government accountability and spending.
| Brand Name | SeeThroughNY |
|---|---|
| Domain | seethroughny.net |
| Industry | Government, Non-profit |
| Parent Company / Owner | Empire Center for Public Policy |
| Main Competitors | OpenTheBooks (71/100), Transparent California (73/100), GovSalaries (49/100), USAspending.gov (71/100), Texas Tribune Government Salaries Explorer |
Ranked #525,373 on the Tranco list of most-visited sites - modest traffic makes the brand easy for AI models to overlook.
No Wikipedia presence was found - a major gap, since Wikipedia is among the most heavily weighted sources in AI training data.
The homepage meta description reads "Welcome to See Through New York, giving New Yorkers a clearer view of how their state and local tax dollars are spent. This site is sponsored by the Empire Center for Public Policy…" (Meta description: 33 words. No OG description (falling back to meta)) - this is the summary AI engines are most likely to quote.
Structured data on the homepage: Microdata (Schema.org). Adding Organization and FAQ schema would further help AI crawlers parse the brand's identity.
AI-crawler access: robots.txt present, no AI bot restrictions - robots.txt controls whether engines like GPTBot and ClaudeBot can read the site at all.
Detected tech stack: Cloudflare.
Social footprint: verified profiles on Facebook, X (Twitter), Instagram; no detected presence on LinkedIn, YouTube, GitHub - consistent profiles reinforce the brand's identity across the web.
0 Reddit mentions - community discussion signals real-world reputation to AI models.
Live results from asking a general-purpose AI assistant about the brand, checked October 2026.
When asked "What is SeeThroughNY?", Claude could identify the brand as of October 2026. SeeThroughNY is a government transparency website run by the Empire Center for Public Policy, a fiscally conservative think tank in New York State. It provides searchable databases of public employee salaries, pensions, local government and school district spending, and other pub Best known for Its searchable database of New York State and local government employee salaries and pensions.
When asked "Best brands similar to SeeThroughNY?", Claude would recommend SeeThroughNY as of October 2026. It's a well-known, widely cited resource for anyone looking up New York public sector salary and pension transparency data.
Common questions people ask in Google, ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, and other AI search engines.
SeeThroughNY's main competitors in Government: OpenTheBooks (71/100), Transparent California (73/100), GovSalaries (49/100), USAspending.gov (71/100).
Sources: Brand Analyzer scan
SeeThroughNY offers free, searchable online databases covering New York public employee payroll records, public pension data, and government contract information. These tools allow users to search by individual, agency, municipality, or school district to view detailed financial data related to public spending.
Sources: SeeThroughNY official site
SeeThroughNY is a government transparency website sponsored by the Empire Center for Public Policy, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization. It serves as an online resource providing New Yorkers access to data on how state and local tax dollars are spent, including public employee payroll, pension, and government contract information.
Sources: SeeThroughNY official site
SeeThroughNY has low AI-search visibility, scoring 15/100 on Brand Analyzer's AI visibility composite (visibility 5, trust 8, recommendation 41). This estimates how likely AI engines like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity are to know, trust, and recommend the brand.
Sources: SeeThroughNY official site
SeeThroughNY compiles and publishes free, searchable databases containing public payroll records, pension data, and government contract information from New York's state and local government entities. It allows users to search for specific public employees, agencies, or municipalities to see salary and benefit information, as well as review how public contracts are awarded and spent.
Sources: SeeThroughNY official site
SeeThroughNY scores 41/100 on Brand Analyzer's AI recommendation signal, indicating it is less likely to be surfaced when AI assistants like ChatGPT suggest Government options. Recommendation depends on crawlability, structured data, and category authority.
Sources: SeeThroughNY official site
SeeThroughNY is known for its searchable public payroll database, which allows users to look up the salaries of New York government employees across state agencies, municipalities, school districts, and public authorities. It is also recognized for its pension and contract databases, which together provide a detailed view of public spending in New York State.
Sources: SeeThroughNY official site
SeeThroughNY can improve AI discoverability by strengthening structured data (Organization and FAQ schema), maintaining an accurate Wikipedia/Wikidata entity, earning authoritative citations, and keeping content crawlable for AI bots. Brand Analyzer measures these as visibility, trust, and recommendation signals.
Sources: SeeThroughNY official site
SeeThroughNY is used by New York taxpayers, journalists, researchers, policymakers, and citizens who want to understand or investigate how state and local tax dollars are spent. It is a particularly useful resource for those researching public employee compensation, pension obligations, or government contracting practices.
Sources: SeeThroughNY official site
SeeThroughNY scores 15/100 for AI visibility - how well ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews can discover, identify and cite the brand.
SeeThroughNY has a weak AI-visibility profile at 15/100 - a proxy for how readily ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google's AI Overviews can recognise and cite it. Its strongest area is recommendation likelihood (41/100) and its weakest is visibility (5/100). It benefits from a global traffic rank of #525,373 (Tranco) and open access for AI crawlers (GPTBot, ClaudeBot, etc.). The main gaps holding it back: no clear Wikipedia entity to anchor it in LLM training data, no strong Wikidata entry and thin schema.org structured data. In a live check, Claude could already identify SeeThroughNY from memory (October 2026) - a sign these signals are paying off.
The score combines seven dimensions - name quality, digital presence, visual identity, messaging clarity, trust foundation, AI discoverability, and brand authority - into a single objective benchmark.
Ranked closest to SeeThroughNY: Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (69/100), San Dieguito Union High School District (69/100), SelfAudit AI (69/100), Sfd.gov (69/100).
A step up - brands to learn from: Gemeente Zonhoven (71/100), ZIA (71/100).
Category leader: ABC News (96/100).
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