AI Visibility Metrics Glossary

Every A2ZReach metric explained in plain English, with an example for each. The examples use a made-up brand, Example Brand.

Visibility Score

How often your brand appears when AI answers your buyers' questions.

The percentage of AI answers in which your brand appears at least once. It is counted over your unbranded prompts, the ones that do not name your brand, because an answer to a prompt that names you will almost always mention you. Prompts that name your brand are kept out of the headline number.

Example: Out of 100 answers to Example Brand's unbranded running-shoe prompts, 50 name Example Brand. Its Visibility Score is 50%.

Share of Voice

Your slice of the conversation: your mentions against everyone else's.

Your mentions divided by all the brand mentions in the same answers: yours, your competitors' and any others the answers name. A higher share means you take up more of the AI conversation in your category.

Example: Across a set of answers, 1,000 brand mentions are made and 120 are Example Brand's. Its Share of Voice is 12%.

Your place in an AI answer

Where your brand comes among the brands an answer names.

Among the brands an AI answer names, where yours comes: 1 means you are named first. Lower is better. The app also shows it as an average across your answers.

Example: An answer names Competitor A, then Example Brand, then Competitor B. Example Brand's place in that answer is 2.

Exclusion / Exclusion Rate

How often AI names your competitors and leaves you out.

An exclusion is a tracked prompt where an AI assistant named your competitors but not you. Your exclusion rate is the share of prompts where that happens. See Exclusion Analysis for who was named instead, why, and which sites the answer cited.

Example: For "best trail running shoes", the answer named Competitor A and Competitor B but not Example Brand: one exclusion. If that happens on 10 of 50 prompts, the exclusion rate is 20%.

Citation

A link an AI assistant shows as the source of its answer.

A citation is counted whether or not the answer names your brand. The pages cited across your answers show which sites the assistants lean on for your category.

Example: An answer about trail shoes links to site-one.com as a source. That is one citation, even if the answer never names Example Brand.

Your share of citations

Out of the links AI assistants cited, how many point to your own site.

It counts every link the assistants cited for your tracked prompts and shows the share that go to pages on your site.

Example: If assistants cited 200 links and 10 point to Example Brand's site, its share of citations is 5%.

Gap Type

The kind of gap that kept you out of an answer, so you know what would help.

Each exclusion carries one or more gaps, each with a type and a note on what would help. The types are editorial coverage (the publications the answer cited do not mention you), comparison presence (comparison content the answer relied on leaves you out), review authority (review sites the answer cited have not reviewed you), content recency (your content is older than what the answer favoured), category mismatch (the answer does not tie your brand to the category) and other. A2ZReach turns each type into the kind of action that fits it.

Example: The answers that left Example Brand out cited roundups on site-one.com and site-two.com, which do not mention it. The gap type is editorial coverage; getting covered on those sites is what would help.