Mentions, citations and share of voice

Watch · 2:54

• 0:00Three numbers
• 0:21Mentions
• 0:42Citations
• 1:18Share of voice
• 1:38Reading the numbers honestly
• 1:58How AI Rank Lab helps

In shortA mention is your brand's name appearing in an AI answer. A citation is a link to a page the engine used as a source; it can be your page or anyone else's. Share of voice compares your mentions with your competitors' mentions across the same set of questions and engines. Track all three, because an answer can name you without linking you, or link your page without recommending you.

Why one number isn't enough

Classic SEO has one headline metric: where you rank. AI answers are different. A single answer can recommend your brand third out of five, in a lukewarm tone, while linking a competitor's comparison page and none of yours. To describe that, you need several numbers, each answering a different question.

Mentions: are you named?

A mention is the brand name in the answer text. Three things are worth recording about it:

• Mentioned or not. Across many runs this becomes a mention rate: the share of runs that name you.
• Position. Where in the answer you first appear. In a list of five recommendations, first is very different from fifth.
• Sentiment. Whether the answer describes you positively, neutrally or negatively. Being named as "expensive and hard to set up" is a mention you don't want.

Citations: which pages were used?

A citation is a source link the engine attaches to its answer. Citations tell you which pages the engine retrieved and trusted for that question. Most of them will belong to other sites: review platforms, comparison articles, publishers, forums and competitors. That is useful, not discouraging. The pages that get cited for your questions are your map: either you beat them with a better page, or you get your brand onto them.

Mentions and citations are independent. Your brand can be recommended because it appears on a cited review site, without your own domain being cited. Your page can be cited for a definition while the answer recommends a competitor. Treat them as two separate scores.

Share of voice: how do you compare?

Share of voice puts your mentions in context. Count how often you are mentioned and how often each competitor is mentioned, across the same questions and engines, then divide your count by the total. A brand mentioned in only 30% of runs may still lead its category if competitors appear even less often.

Reading the numbers honestly

• Every number depends on the question set. Add easy branded questions and your mention rate jumps; add broad category questions and it falls. Change the set and you can't compare with last month.
• Share of voice depends on who you count. Leave out a strong competitor and your share looks better than it is. Keep the competitor list fixed between comparisons.
• Small samples swing. Twenty answers is a sample. Repeat runs before you report a change (lesson 7).
• Engines differ. Report each engine separately as well as the total. A strong ChatGPT result can hide a weak Perplexity one.

How AI Rank Lab helps

Every prompt run in Brand visibility stores whether you were mentioned, your position, the sentiment, the competitors named and every cited URL. The Visibility overview turns runs into a scorecard: AI Recommendation Rate is your mention rate, Market Share in AI is share of voice against the competitors found in your answers, Average Rank is your mean position, and Reputation Score reflects tone. The Citations page shows which domains and URLs engines cite, and Brand Citation Share is the part of those citations that point at your domain.