Understanding AI visibility rates
A brand mention means an answer names the business. A website citation means a source link points to the tracked website. An answer can do either, both or neither. Neither measure establishes a recommendation, click or sale.
Discovery questions and brand-named questions
“What does RunPR do?” supplies the company name. “What PR software should a small agency consider?” does not. A mention in the second answer tells us something different from a mention in the first.
RunPR’s Discovery mention rate includes completed answers to eligible questions that do not name the monitored brand or website. Eligible questions can come from discovery, topical, competitor, category or industry sets. Founder/executive questions and other ineligible types are excluded.
The citation study’s discovery row is one stored question category. It is not the dashboard’s entire discovery-eligible set. A competitor question that already names the client, for example, does not count as unaided discovery for that client.
The same scan can produce three different rates
Suppose an illustrative scan returns 30 completed answers:
- Twenty answer eligible discovery questions. Five mention the brand.
- Ten answer questions naming the brand. All 10 mention it.
- Eight of the 30 cite the brand’s website.
Swipe or scroll sideways to compare all columns.
| Metric | Calculation | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|
| Discovery mention rate | 5 ÷ 20 = 25% | The brand appeared in a quarter of completed eligible discovery answers. |
| Brand mention rate | 15 ÷ 30 = 50% | Half of all completed answers named the brand, including answers prompted with its name. |
| Domain citation rate | 8 ÷ 30 = 26.7% | Just over a quarter of completed answers cited the tracked website. |
These rates have different denominators. A 50% brand mention rate does not mean the brand appeared in half of discovery answers.
Failed answers are not counted as answers that omitted the brand. Check the scan’s completion status before comparing results. A changed prompt set or engine setup can require a new baseline.
A mention does not require a link to your website
Swipe or scroll sideways to compare all columns.
| Illustrative answer | Brand mention? | Website citation? |
|---|---|---|
| Names RunPR with no source links | Yes | No |
| Names RunPR and cites an independent software review | Yes | No |
| Names RunPR and cites RunPR’s website | Yes | Yes |
| Cites a RunPR article without naming RunPR in the text | No | Yes |
“RunPR does not meet this requirement” is still a mention, not a recommendation. A citation can support a statement without indicating that anyone clicked the link.
Citation concentration is a separate measurement
The study asks how much linking activity goes to the most frequently cited domains. If 12 of 20 links point to two domains, those domains receive 60% of links. That is not a brand mention rate or an estimate of traffic.