# AI Visibility: What the Numbers Mean

> How to read your AI visibility report. Revnu measures how often ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews name you, has first numbers ready minutes after you enter your website, and then does the work that moves them. Visibility, Share of Voice, Citation Share, Search Demand, Avg. Position, Top-1 Rate, personas, competitors and every Visibility page explained.

Canonical: https://revnu.com/docs/ai-visibility
Last updated: 2026-11-08

AI visibility is how often AI assistants such as ChatGPT name your business when someone asks the kind of question your buyers ask. Revnu asks those questions on your behalf, on a schedule, reads every answer, and then does the work that moves the number: it writes and publishes the pages answers are missing, gets you listed where engines look, and fixes what keeps Google from indexing you. The same Revnu runs your outbound and ads, so what buyers ask AI shapes every channel. The results are on the **Visibility** pages of the dashboard. This is GEO (generative engine optimization), measured and worked on in one place. [What is GEO?](https://revnu.com/docs/what-are-aeo-and-geo.md) explains the idea.

In plain words:

- **Visibility** is how often AI answers to your buyers' questions mention you.
- **Share of Voice** is how much of the talk about your category is about you, not your competitors.
- **Citation Share** is how often the links in those answers point at your own pages.

## The numbers, read correctly

Every number below counts measured answers: one AI engine's answer to one of your tracked questions on one run.

| Number | What it counts | Where |
|---|---|---|
| **Visibility** | The share of answers that mention you. Revnu balances your score across topics, so one big topic can't swamp the rest. | The big percentage on **Overview** |
| **Share of Voice** | Your mentions divided by your mentions plus every competitor's, in AI answers. | **Overview**, **Performance** |
| **Citation Share** | Links to your own pages divided by every link the answers cite. | **Overview**, **Citations** |
| **Mention Rate** | For one question: the share of its answers in the period that mention you. | The **Where You Show Up** heatmap on **Overview** |
| **Search Demand** | Monthly Google searches for a tracked question in the countries you sell in, shown as High, Medium, Low or Very Low plus the number. AI tools don't publish how often a prompt is asked, so this is the closest real measure. | **Prompts** |
| **Avg. Position** | Where you appear among the brands an answer names, averaged over the answers that mention you. 1 is first. Answers that leave you out don't count. | **Performance** |
| **Top-1 Rate** | Answers that name you first, divided by all answers, including the ones that leave you out. It can never be higher than Visibility. | The brand comparison on **Performance** |
| **Visibility Score Rank** | Your place among the tracked brands, ordered by visibility. Opening one question shows the same idea as **Visibility Rank**. | Beside the Visibility Score chart on **Performance** |
| **Position Rank** | Your place among the brands on one engine, ordered by average position. A brand needs at least three answers on that engine to hold a place. | **Platforms**, on **Performance** |

Worth knowing when you read them:

- **Visibility and Mention Rate can disagree.** Visibility is balanced across topics. Mention Rate is the raw share for one question, so a strong question in a big topic moves it more than Visibility.
- **A good position can hide a low visibility.** Position only counts answers that mention you. You can average 1.5 and still be missing from most answers.
- **Top-1 Rate and Avg. Position tell different stories.** Say 6 of 10 answers mention you and 3 of those name you first. Visibility is 60%, Top-1 Rate is 30%, and Avg. Position might be 1.5. Top-1 Rate counts every answer; position counts only the ones that name you.
- **Citation Share can be low while you're mentioned.** An AI engine can name you while linking to a review site or a list. Add old domains, aliases or a separate blog host under **Your Domains** on the **Citations** page, and citations to them count too.

The headline numbers always use ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity, so they mean the same thing on every plan. That set is called **Core 4** in the **Platform** picker at the top right of the Visibility pages. Pick one engine to see it alone, or **All Platforms** for every engine your plan measures.

![The top of the Visibility Overview: Brand Visibility at 64%, up from 60% last week, with its daily trend, Share of Voice and Citation Share, and Where You Show Up listing each tracked prompt with a cell per engine and its visibility](https://revnu.com/docs/screens/visibility.webp)

## A worked example: which number to report

Say **Overview** shows **4%** visibility with **Last 7 Days** selected, but when you hover one day on the **Daily Visibility** chart it shows **8%**.

- **4%** is the whole window: of every answer measured in the last 7 days, 4 in 100 mentioned you.
- **8%** is one day. On Pro most measurements happen on your weekly day, so single days jump around.

Report the window number, with the window: "4% visibility over the last 7 days, Core 4." Compare it with the same window, the same engines and the same questions next time.

> **Tip:** **Last 30 Days** gives a steadier number than **Last 7 Days**.

**Is this the same as share of voice in SEO tools?**

They measure different things. SEO tools measure share of voice from Google search rankings and estimated clicks. Revnu's Share of Voice counts mentions inside AI answers: your mentions against your competitors' mentions. The two can move in opposite directions, so read each on its own.

Revnu's Google numbers are on **Visibility > Google Search**, from your own Search Console. Your links and link authority are on **Visibility > Competitors > Backlinks**.

## Which engines Revnu checks, and how often

| Plan | Engines | How often |
|---|---|---|
| Pro | ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity | Weekly, on the same weekday each week |
| Managed | Those four, plus Google AI Overview, Google AI Mode, Copilot, Grok, Qwen, Mistral, DeepSeek, Meta AI and Amazon Rufus | Daily, and also from the regions you sell in |

Your first numbers arrive about 75 seconds after you enter your website, on ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity, before most people have finished signing up. On Pro, the **Platforms** section of **Performance** then shows "Checked weekly" and the weekday under each engine. That's when the next measurement runs.

Managed adds Grok, Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode and Copilot, plus results by region. Pro numbers cover its four engines exactly, with no estimates for the rest. See [Pro and Managed](https://revnu.com/docs/plans.md).

The **Daily** and **Weekly** toggle on **Performance** only changes how the chart groups the data. It doesn't change how often Revnu measures.

**A question you've just added** is measured straight away, usually within minutes, on the engines your plan covers. After that, on Pro, it's measured with the others on your weekly day.

**Tracking a long list.** Larger lists are measured on a rotation, so every question keeps getting fresh answers. Revnu tells you how often each one is measured when your list grows.

Revnu measures on its schedule rather than on demand, which keeps every comparison fair, including right after you ship a fix. When you ask Revnu about visibility, it reads the stored answers and tells you their dates. To judge a fix fairly, leave your tracked questions as they are and compare the next scheduled measurement with the one before.

## What each Visibility page shows

| Page | What you'll find there |
|---|---|
| **Overview** | Your headline Visibility with the **Daily Visibility** chart, Share of Voice and Citation Share; **Where You Show Up**, a heatmap of each tracked question against each engine; **Brand Ranking**; **By AI Platform**; and **Topic Performance**. |
| **Performance** | Four sections. **Visibility**: Visibility, Share of Voice, Avg. Position and Top-1 Rate over time, with every tracked brand side by side. **Platforms**: the same numbers split by engine, with **Position Rank** per engine. **Regions**: how answers differ by country, on Managed. **Personas**: how answers change when the engine knows who is asking. |
| **Sentiment** | How engines describe you: **Sentiment by Topic**, **Sentiment by Platform**, and the **Positive Answer Themes** and **Critical Answer Themes** behind them, with the answers they came from. |
| **Prompts** | Every question you track, with its **Search Demand**, Visibility, Avg. Pos., Citation and **Answers** (how many AI answers were checked in the period), where it came from, and its full answer history by engine and date. Its **Search Expansions** section shows the web searches engines run behind each question: **Avg Queries / Execution**, **Distinct Sub-queries**, **Search Expansions by Prompt** and **Word Transformations**. |
| **Competitors** | Every tracked brand compared with you, and a **Competitor Profile** for each, with where they beat you, where you beat them and the Google searches they rank for. Its **Backlinks** section shows who links to you and how your link authority compares. |
| **Citations** | **Citation Share**, **Most-cited Sources**, **Citation Categories** and the **Top Citation Domains** table, with each domain's cited pages and a CSV export. |
| **Google Search** | Your queries, clicks and impressions from Search Console. See [Search Console](https://revnu.com/docs/search-console.md). |
| **Posts** | Revnu's blog posts and your publishing settings. |

Old links to the former AI Visibility, Platforms, Regions and Search Expansions pages open the matching section.

### Read the Where You Show Up heatmap

Each row is a tracked question and each column an engine. A cell's colour is the share of that engine's answers that named you in the period; hover it for the count, such as "ChatGPT named you in 2 of 4 answers". An outlined cell had no answers from that engine in the period. Click a row to open that question's answers.

When Revnu is working on a question, the heatmap says so: hover the question or the cell to read Revnu's note, such as "Revnu is on it: …" or "Done: …". The heatmap shows the questions Revnu is working on first, then fills up with the rest; **View All** opens the full list on **Prompts**.

Search expansions and citations are where the next actions come from. [How AI engines choose what to cite](https://revnu.com/docs/how-ai-engines-choose-sources.md) explains both, including the five **Citation Categories**.

![Visibility, Prompts: tracked prompts grouped by topic, each with Search Demand as High or Medium plus monthly searches, rank, visibility, average position, citation share and answers checked](https://revnu.com/docs/screens/visibility-prompts.webp)

## Branded and non-branded questions

Revnu tracks non-branded questions: the ones a buyer asks before they know you, like "best invoicing tool for freelancers". That's where being named wins customers. **Tracked Prompts** keeps your list non-branded, so questions that name your brand stay off it.

How AI engines describe you when they do name you is on the **Sentiment** page.

**What if my name is also a common word or another company's name?**

Revnu's matching tells you apart from same-named companies, places and products, so an answer about them doesn't count as a mention. Adding every domain you own under **Your Domains** sharpens it further.

If you still see mentions or citations that are about another product, tell Revnu which ones: "the Acme answers about the music app aren't us." It can reword or drop the questions that keep matching the other product. Write questions the way a buyer would, without your name, in a few words, for example "invoicing tool for freelancers".

## Add, edit and remove questions

### 1. Open Tracked Prompts

Open **Visibility > Prompts**. Clear any topic filter first, so the box is ready to type in.

### 2. Type a question and click Add

Write it the way a buyer types into ChatGPT: short, four to nine words, with no brand name. For example "invoicing tool for freelancers in the UK". Keep it short, because that's how people really ask.

### 3. Edit or remove one

To change a question, click the pencil on its row. To stop tracking it, click the X.

You can also ask in chat: "track 'best CRM for dental clinics'", "stop tracking the pricing question", or "add Acme as a competitor".

With **Last 7 Days** or **Last 30 Days** selected, a small tag next to each question shows where it came from:

- **Manual**: one you added.
- **Research**: one Revnu found while researching your market.
- **GSC**: a real search from your Search Console.
- **Keyword**: a keyword you asked Revnu to target.

Removing a question stops new measurements of it. Keep hard questions on the list rather than swapping them for easy ones, so every gain in your score is real. Changed what you sell? Swap the old product's questions for the new one's, as [changed what you sell](https://revnu.com/docs/changed-what-you-sell.md) explains.

## Turning gaps into actions

Revnu works on its own on the questions where answers leave you out, and the **Where You Show Up** heatmap on **Overview** shows what it's doing on each one. To dig into a gap yourself, ask in chat, for example "why doesn't ChatGPT name us for invoicing tool for freelancers?". Revnu re-reads the latest answers for that question, and proposes one next step.

The next step is usually one of these:

- **Add what's missing to a page.** If the answers miss facts that your pages don't state either, Revnu proposes the exact addition and the page it belongs on. Writing it follows your [Blog Posts setting](https://revnu.com/docs/blog-posts-control.md).
- **Get listed where the answers look.** If the answers cite a directory or a "best X" list that names your competitors, Revnu can submit you there. See [free directory listings](https://revnu.com/docs/directory-listings.md).
- **Track a clearer question.** If the wording leads AI engines to a different kind of product, Revnu proposes a better question to track next to the old one.

Each action says what the next measurement should show, so you can tell whether it worked. AI answers pick up changes over a few weeks.

### Track more queries

Tracking 25 or more questions gives you a steady score, since no single answer swings it. Ask Revnu "what else should we track?" and it reads the questions you track and your business, then proposes new buyer questions. Each one sits next to the nearest question you already track and says what new buying decision it covers. Nothing is added until you say so. Reply "track those" (or name the ones you want) and Revnu adds them. You can also add them yourself in **Tracked Prompts**.

[How to pick the right prompts](https://revnu.com/docs/pick-prompts-to-track.md) goes deeper. In short, approve the ones a real buyer would type before they've heard of you, the way they'd type them: four to nine words, no brand name. The best picks are the questions your best customers asked before they found you. A new question is usually measured within minutes, then with the others on your weekly day on Pro.

### What Revnu does and what you do

| Revnu does | You do |
|---|---|
| Writes posts that answer the questions you're missing from | Approve posts, if **Blog Posts** is on **Ask Me First** |
| Proposes the exact addition for one of your pages | Make it, or merge Revnu's pull request if your repo is connected |
| Submits you to free directories and "submit your tool" forms | Paid or sponsored placements |
| Gives you the link and the pitch for a "best X" list run by a person | Pitch the list's author or editor, if you want to |
| Proposes better questions to track | Approve which ones to track |
| Tells you which DNS or site setting to change | Change your DNS or site settings |

Revnu keeps your links clean, with nothing bought or traded. Where a list is reached by asking a person, Revnu gives you the link and the pitch, and you decide whether to send it.

## Track what AI tells each kind of buyer

AI answers change when the engine knows who is asking. **Visibility > Performance > Personas** shows whether you're recommended to each of your buyers, set against the same questions asked plainly, with the brands named instead and your own pages cited.

Add personas in the **Tracked Personas** card at the bottom of that section: up to 5, each with a role, industry, company size and a line of context, for example "Mechanical engineer, aerospace, 200-1,000 people". Click **Add Persona**, or say "add a persona: VP Engineering at a medical device company" in chat. A new persona's first answers arrive after the next daily measurement.

## Track the competitors you lose deals to

The **Competitors** list starts from the brands AI answers name next to you. Add any rival you meet in deals, and Share of Voice counts it from then on, alongside every competitor you track.

To add one:

1. Open **Visibility > Competitors**.
2. Type the name in the **Add competitor** row at the bottom of the table and click the plus.
3. To stop tracking one, hover its row and click the X (**Hide Competitor**).

Or ask in chat: "add Acme as a competitor." You can track up to 10 on Pro and up to 60 on Managed.

After you add one, Revnu re-checks your tracked questions straight away, usually within minutes, so the new competitor shows up in the table. After that it's measured with everything else, weekly on Pro.

![Competitors, Comparison: each competitor's visibility on Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity, your own row marked You, and Add Competitor at the bottom](https://revnu.com/docs/screens/visibility-competitors.webp)

## Hand AI-visibility fixes to your coding agent

If a coding agent works on your site, it can get the fix list from Revnu and make the changes. Two ways:

- **Give the agent a token.** In **Settings > Developers**, mint a token with `agent:message` and `results:read`, labelled with the agent's name. The agent then asks Revnu through the `ask_revnu` tool or the API, for example "what changes do you need on our site to show up in AI answers for 'invoicing tool for freelancers'?", and makes them. Setup: [Developers](https://revnu.com/docs/developers.md).
- **Connect GitHub.** Revnu opens the pull requests itself, and your coding agent reviews and merges them like a person's. See [Connect GitHub](https://revnu.com/docs/github-blog-posts.md).

> **Note:** If your agent can drive a browser, still give it a token. Anything typed into the dashboard chat is recorded as you, without the label and scopes a token gives it.

## When your buyers are developers

For a product with an MCP server, CLI, API or SDK, coding agents such as Claude Code pick tools and set them up for developers. Revnu runs agent tests that show whether they pick you and can set you up from your docs, and on Managed it can also ask some of your tracked questions on the AI engines it checks, framed as a developer's coding agent, every day. See [Coding agents](https://revnu.com/docs/agent-experience.md).

## Read the numbers alongside your pipeline

Visibility tells you how often you're named when buyers ask. Pair it with these to see the full picture:

- **Demand.** Visibility measures whether you're named on the questions you track. **Search Demand** on **Prompts** shows how many people search for each one on Google, and [Search Console](https://revnu.com/docs/search-console.md) shows the searches you already appear for.
- **Visits.** With the [Revnu Tag](https://revnu.com/docs/revnu-tag.md) on your site, ask Revnu "how much traffic did AI engines send us?" It reports visits by engine and landing page. Some engines hide where a visitor came from, so treat the number as a floor.
- **Cause.** Revnu compares the same question on the same engine before and after each change, and tells you when a result is too small to call. Engines also change on their own, so judge over several measurements.

## Citations are up but leads are flat

Inbound from AI answers often arrives later: buyers who meet you in an answer come back days afterwards, by searching your name or typing your address. To see the link:

1. **Install the [Revnu Tag](https://revnu.com/docs/revnu-tag.md)** and [set up outcomes](https://revnu.com/docs/set-up-outcomes.md) for trials, purchases and booked calls, so Revnu can count what visitors do.
2. **Ask Revnu "how much traffic did AI engines send us?"** It reports visits by engine and landing page.
3. **Ask new leads where they heard about you.** Add a "How did you hear about us?" field to your sign-up or booking form, with ChatGPT and other AI assistants as options. It catches the people who read an answer and came back later.
4. **Give it time.** Inbound from AI answers builds over months. Judge it over that span, against the same questions and the same windows.

## Next step

[How do I pick the right prompts to track?](https://revnu.com/docs/pick-prompts-to-track.md)

## Frequently asked questions

### How soon do I see my first AI visibility numbers?

About 75 seconds after you enter your website. Revnu asks your first buyer questions on ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity at once, so the numbers are waiting when you reach the dashboard.

### Does Revnu only measure, or does it improve my visibility too?

Most AI-visibility tools stop at a dashboard. Revnu does the work: it writes and publishes the pages AI answers are missing, gets you listed on the sites engines cite, fixes what keeps your pages out of Google, and reports the real numbers before and after.

### What does Search Demand mean?

Monthly Google searches for a tracked question in the countries you sell in, shown as High, Medium, Low or Very Low plus the number. AI tools don't publish how often a prompt is asked, so Google searches are the closest real measure of demand.

### Why is one engine at 0% when the others show me?

Each engine builds its answers its own way, from its own search and what it learned in training, so you can be named on one and missing on another. 0% means none of that engine's measured answers named you in the window. Pick that engine in the **Platform** picker to read its answers, or ask Revnu in chat why that engine leaves you out.

### How many questions should I track?

At least 25, so one answer doesn't swing your score. Ask Revnu what else to track and it proposes buyer questions to add. Nothing is added until you approve them. Larger lists are measured on a rotation.

### How do I add a competitor Revnu isn't tracking?

Open **Visibility > Competitors**, type the name in the **Add competitor** row and click the plus, or ask in chat. Revnu measures it within minutes, then weekly on Pro. You can track up to 10 on Pro and up to 60 on Managed.

### Can my coding agent make the site changes Revnu suggests?

Yes. Give it a token with `agent:message` and `results:read` so it can ask Revnu what to change, or connect GitHub so Revnu opens pull requests your agent reviews.

### Does Revnu pitch the authors of "best X" lists?

Revnu submits the free listings it can fill in itself. For a list you get onto by asking a person, it gives you the link and a ready pitch, and you decide whether to send it.

### What are Search Expansions?

They're the web searches an AI engine runs behind one of your tracked questions before it answers, also called query fanouts. **Visibility > Prompts > Search Expansions** lists them so you can see which angles your pages need to cover.

### What do the Citation Categories mean?

They group the sites AI answers cite: **Earned Media** (publications and review sites), **Social** (Reddit, YouTube, LinkedIn and other communities), **Institution** (Wikipedia, universities, governments), **PR Wire** (press release sites) and **Other**. Each kind calls for a different play, explained in [how AI engines choose what to cite](https://revnu.com/docs/how-ai-engines-choose-sources.md).

### What is Position Rank?

Your place among the brands on one engine, ordered by average position. A brand needs at least three answers on that engine to hold a place. It's in the **Platforms** section of **Visibility > Performance**.

### What is a good AI visibility score?

A good score is one that beats your competitors on the same questions and climbs over time. Compare your score with theirs on the **Competitors** page and track it for the same questions week to week. The level to aim for depends on how crowded your category is and how hard your questions are.

### Why is my mention rate different from my visibility score?

Visibility is balanced across topics, so one big topic can't swamp the rest. Mention rate is the plain share of answers to one question that mention you, so the two can differ.

### How often does Revnu check ChatGPT?

Your first numbers arrive about 75 seconds after you enter your website. After that, on Pro, weekly, on the weekday shown under each engine on **Performance**. On Managed, daily, across more engines. Larger lists are measured on a rotation.

### Can I make Revnu measure my visibility right now?

Revnu measures on a set schedule: weekly on Pro, daily on Managed. A question or competitor you've just added is measured straight away. To judge a fix, keep your tracked questions unchanged and compare the next scheduled measurement.

### Why does my visibility say 4% on Overview but 8% for one day?

The headline is the whole window, for example the last 7 days. A day on the chart is that one day. Report the window number and name the window.

### Is Share of Voice the same as share of voice in SEO tools?

They measure different things. Revnu's Share of Voice counts your mentions inside AI answers against your competitors' mentions. SEO tools measure share of voice from Google rankings.

### Does Pro check Grok or Google AI Overviews?

Managed does. Pro measures ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity weekly. Managed adds Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode, Copilot, Grok and more, daily, with results by region. See [Pro and Managed](https://revnu.com/docs/plans.md).

### What does the Daily and Weekly toggle change?

Only how the chart groups the data. It doesn't change how often Revnu measures.

### Why can't I track a question with my brand name in it?

Revnu tracks non-branded questions because they show whether engines recommend you to buyers who haven't heard of you, which is what wins customers. A branded question only shows whether engines know you exist.

### Does AI visibility bring me leads?

It can. Being named in AI answers puts you in front of buyers while they're choosing. With the Revnu Tag installed, Revnu counts the visits AI engines send to your site. To link a deal to a mention, ask new leads how they heard about you.