Prominence
Prominence is how strongly an AI answer puts you forward when it names you: how early you come and how much space you get.
Prominence is how strongly an AI answer puts your brand forward once it names you. Being the first recommendation, with a paragraph about why, is prominent. Being the last name in a list of ten, with nothing said about you, barely counts.
Visibility tells you whether you're in the answer. Prominence tells you whether anyone reading it would notice. Two brands can be named in the same number of answers and get very different results.
What goes into it
There's no single agreed way to measure prominence. Most people look at some mix of three things:
- Where you're named, for example first or fifth
- How many words the answer spends on you, a name or a whole paragraph
- How you're presented, as the main recommendation or as an aside like "you could also try"
Some measures combine these into one score. Researchers have proposed Position-Adjusted Word Count, which weighs the words tied to a source by how early they appear.
An example
Two answers to "What's the best coffee subscription in the UK?" both name Fernhill Coffee.
The first opens: "Fernhill Coffee is the best pick for most people, with fresh beans roasted to order and free delivery." It then mentions two other brands.
The second lists eight brands, with Fernhill seventh and no description.
Both count as a mention. Only the first is likely to send Fernhill a customer.
Prominence in AnswerOrbit
We don't combine prominence into one number, so you can see each part on its own. Your position is the order in which brands first appear in an answer, averaged over the answers that name you. Read it next to your visibility, since a good position in very few answers isn't much to go on. To see how an answer presented you, open it in Answers: every brand it named is marked in order, and the sentiment of each mention is in Perception.