Brand mention
A brand mention is any AI answer that names your brand, whether or not it links to your website.
A brand mention is when an AI answer names your brand. It's the building block of most AI search numbers: visibility, share of voice and position all start from counting mentions.
A mention doesn't need a link. An answer that says "Fernhill is a good choice for office coffee" without linking anywhere still puts your name in front of the person who asked.
What counts as a mention
We count your brand's name, or another name you've given us for it, as a whole word. That covers short names and spellings customers use, so Ledgerfox and Ledgerfox Invoicing count as the same brand. You can add other names for your brand in Settings, and for each competitor in Competitors.
An answer counts as one mention however many times it names you. If an answer is clearly about a different business with the same name, it doesn't count. If we can't tell which business it means, we mark it as possibly another business and leave it out.
For example, an answer that names you three times, and another that names a bakery in another city that shares your name, add up to one mention for you.
A mention isn't a recommendation
An answer can name you as its top pick, as one of ten, as an example, or as a warning. All of these are mentions. Position tells you where you came, and sentiment tells you the tone.
Mentions and citations
A mention is your name in the text. A citation is a link to a page. An answer can do either, both or neither. When an answer reads your page but names someone else, that's a citation without a mention, and it's one of the quickest places to win.
What the numbers mean has the full definition.