Branded search lift
Branded search lift is a rise in the number of people searching for your brand by name, often a sign that more people are hearing about you.
Branded search lift is a rise in how many people search for your brand by name. When more people type "Fernhill Coffee" into Google, something has made them want to look you up.
It matters in AI search because many AI answers name brands without sending a click. Someone reads that Fernhill is a good pick, closes the assistant, and searches for Fernhill later. That visit shows up in your analytics as a branded search, and the AI answer that started it doesn't show up at all.
How to measure it
Pick a few ways people search for you: your name on its own, and your name followed by words like coffee or reviews. Then watch how often they're searched over time.
Google Search Console shows how many times your site appeared for each search, which is a good proxy. Google Trends shows the shape of interest in your name, without exact numbers.
For example, Fernhill Coffee's branded searches in Search Console average 1,200 a month for most of the year. In the two months after Fernhill starts showing up in AI answers about coffee subscriptions, they rise to 1,600 and then 1,750. The timing is a strong hint, though Fernhill can't prove every extra search came from an AI answer.
Reading it with care
Lots of things lift branded search: a press mention, a sale, an ad campaign, the season. Before you credit AI answers, check what else happened at the same time. The clearest signal comes when your AI visibility rises and nothing else changed.
Compare like with like, too. Many brands get more branded searches in December than in June every year.
In AnswerOrbit
We can't see what people do after they read an answer, so we don't measure branded search. To compare the two, put your visibility over time next to your branded searches from Search Console. Before and after a date in Recommendations shows how your numbers moved around a change you made.