Answer Radar

Reading the Visibility Metrics

Answer Radar has no single visibility score. It reports six defined metrics per segment, each computed only over admissible samples and each carrying its definition and a disclosure block. This article explains five of them as a reader of the Overview and the metrics tools meets them; mean position has its own article.

Quick Answer

Presence rate is the share of admissible answers that named or cited you. Recommendation rate is the share that recommended you, always lower or equal. Share of voice divides vendor visibility among products, one vendor once per answer. Sentiment mix and citation share describe tone and sources. A segment with nothing admissible reports usable false and no numbers.

  • Metrics are per segment: engine, model, tool version, geography, language. Never averaged across engines.
  • Only grounded samples count. Errors, ungrounded and thin samples are excluded and reported by grade.
  • Every figure travels with its definition, sample counts and version stamps.

Presence rate

The share of admissible samples in which the buyer's brand was named in the answer text or cited by URL. Presence is an observation about the answer, not a judgement about ranking or endorsement.

Named or cited: an answer that cites your page without saying your name still counts you present, matching how a gap is decided not to exist. Presence is a whole-word match against the answer text and a domain match against citations; nothing about vendor grouping can move it.

Recommendation rate

The share of admissible samples in which the buyer's brand was not merely named but recommended, as judged by the mention extractor. Always lower than or equal to presence rate.

This is the metric the gaps are built on. A buying question where the engine named you but recommended someone else is a gap; a question where it recommended you is not. The judgement carries its own version, mentions-v4 on the day, and rows judged under an older version are excluded and counted.

Share of voice

Each vendor's share of all vendor visibility in the segment. A vendor named anywhere in a sample counts once for that sample, no matter how many of its products the answer lists, so a broad product catalogue cannot inflate the score. Only entities classified as products count; publications and features are excluded. Shares sum to 1 across vendors.

Because shares sum to one, share of voice is a distribution, not a rate. It is not subtracted between runs in re-verification; presence and recommendation are.

Sentiment mix and citation share

Sentiment mix is the distribution of judged sentiment, positive, neutral or negative, across a vendor's mentions in the segment, as a share of that vendor's mentions carrying a sentiment label. Citation share is each domain's share of all cited domains in the segment, counting a domain once per sample that cites it, and flags whether a domain is the buyer's own or a tracked competitor's.

Citation share is where sources live. A review site that appears in every answer shows up here as a heavily cited domain, and not in share of voice, because it is a publication rather than a product you compete with.

Admissibility and the refusal to report

Every sample is graded before it is counted. A provider failure is an error. A sample where the engine did not search, or where grounding is unknown, is ungrounded. A sample that searched but returned fewer than one citation, fewer than 500 characters, or named no product at all is thin. Everything else is grounded, and only grounded samples feed the metrics.

The disclosure block with every metric set states total samples, admissible samples, the count excluded under each grade and under each other judgement version, the prompt count, the window and every version string. A segment with no admissible samples reports usable false and no metrics at all, because a zero would turn a failed measurement into a finding.

  • A rate over 5 of 8 samples is a different claim from a rate over 8 of 8; the block shows which.
  • Numbers stamped with different versions are not comparable; the versions are in the block.
  • Metrics filtered by topic use only the prompts carrying that topic.

FAQ

Why do I see numbers for ChatGPT but none for one of the other engines?

That engine's segment had no admissible samples in the window, usually because its samples failed or did not search. It is reported as usable false rather than as zero visibility. Check the run's Answers view for the grade reasons.

Why is recommendation rate lower than presence rate?

By definition. Recommendation requires the engine to put you forward, not just name you. It is always lower than or equal to presence.

Can I compare my share of voice with a competitor's tool score?

No. Every vendor's score is a sample of its own prompt set on its own engines. Our numbers compare with themselves across time when the versions and segment match. The methodology page has the full rule.

Related help pages