Methodology
How the AI Visibility Score works
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TL;DR
The AI Visibility Score is the percentage of AI answers that named your business: every 24 hours CiteRank asks ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews the real questions your buyers ask, sending only the question and never your name, and the score is the share of those checks whose answer named you, from 0 to 100.
What does the AI Visibility Score measure?
The score is the share of AI checks that named your business, from 0 to 100.
Every 24 hours, CiteRank asks ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews the real questions your buyers ask, 25 tracked questions per brand. Each question asked on each engine is one check.
A check counts as a win when the engine's answer names your business or your website. Your score is the wins divided by the checks: a score of 40 means you were named in 40 of every 100 checks over the reporting window, which is the last 7 days unless you pick a longer one.
ChatGPT · Claude · Gemini · Perplexity · Google AI Overviews
How does a check work?
We send the engine only the question, never your name, and read the natural answer a real buyer would get.
Passing your brand name along with the question would bias the engine toward mentioning you, so it never travels with the check. Every check runs the way a buyer would ask: ChatGPT with web search forced on for every answer, Claude with web search on and up to three searches per answer, Gemini with Google Search grounding, Perplexity searching the web as it always does, and Google AI Overviews read from the real overview Google shows in your country, which is the Region in your Writing settings, else the country your domain suffix implies, else the United States. An engine answering from memory alone almost never names a small business, which is how other tools end up reporting a zero for a brand that is winning leads.
From each answer we record three separate outcomes: whether you were named, in what position among the competitors you track, and whether the answer cited your own site as a source. A mention and a citation are not the same thing, so the score keeps them apart: the headline is your mention rate, and your citation rate and the share of answers that named you before any competitor you track sit beside it. Every data point also keeps an excerpt of the answer and the date it was read, so you can open any cell on your board and read the record behind the number.
Why does the score move?
Publishing answer-ready content is what gets you named, and the score follows over the next few weeks.
Engines have to crawl and index a new page before they can quote it, which takes days to weeks and varies by engine. You will see articles and coverage move right away; the score is the lagging proof.
The score is a measured signal, not a formula we control, and AI answers vary naturally from day to day, so small moves are normal. To keep the board honest without flicker, a single missed check holds your last confirmed state, and a question is marked Slipped only after it misses repeatedly, two daily checks in a row. Read the trend over weeks, not the wobble of a single day.
What does the score not do?
It is not a Google ranking, and it never guesses.
- It is not a Google ranking. The score measures whether AI assistants name you in their answers. Your classic Google traffic is tracked separately, through Search Console.
- It does not estimate. Every point comes from a real answer recorded on a real date. There is no model predicting what an engine might say.
- No data means no score, not a zero. A question that has not been checked yet shows as unchecked, and a brand with no checks shows no number, because printing a 0 we did not measure would be a guess.
Questions people ask
Is the AI Visibility Score a Google ranking?
No. The score measures whether AI assistants name your business when they answer your buyers' questions, which Google's classic rankings do not tell you. CiteRank tracks your Google traffic separately, through Search Console, and never mixes the two numbers.
How often does the score update?
Every 24 hours. Each of your 25 tracked questions is asked again across ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews each day, and the score reflects the share of checks in your reporting window that named you.
Why did my score move when I changed nothing?
Because AI answers vary naturally from day to day, and the score reports what the engines actually said, not a smoothed estimate. Small daily moves are normal; a single missed check holds your last confirmed state on the board, and the trend over weeks is the number to watch.
Is Claude checked with web search on?
Yes, and so is every other engine. CiteRank asks ChatGPT with web search forced on for every answer, Claude with web search on and up to three searches per answer, Gemini with Google Search grounding, Perplexity searching as it always does, and reads Google AI Overviews from the real overview Google shows in your country, which is the Region in your Writing settings, else the country your domain suffix implies, else the United States. A tool that queries an engine without search gets an answer from memory, which almost never names a small business, so it reports a zero for a brand that is winning leads.
Is being named the same as being cited?
No. An answer names you when your business appears in its text; it cites you when it links to your own site as a source. CiteRank records both separately, so your headline score is the mention rate and your citation rate sits beside it. Only engines that searched the web can cite.
Can I see the evidence behind my score?
Yes. Every check stores whether you were named, your position among the competitors you track, the sites the answer cited, an excerpt of the answer, and the date. Click any cell on the board to read the record behind it.
What is a good AI Visibility Score?
Most brands start at or near 0, because an AI answer names only two or three businesses per question. The goal is movement: publish answer-first content, and watch the daily checks. Engines have to crawl and index a page before they can quote it, which takes days to weeks and varies by engine, so the score climbs as more checks name you rather than on a schedule.
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