How we measure AI visibility
A rigorous, framework-driven methodology for measuring how AI search engines discover, trust, and recommend your business. Full transparency into every score.
The AI Visibility Funnel
AI search engines don't rank pages — they recommend answers. Getting recommended requires progressing through four distinct stages, each building on the last. Our methodology measures where your business stands at every stage.
Discovery
Can AI find you?The foundation. If AI cannot parse your content, nothing else matters. This stage covers schema markup, structured data, entity relationships, clean site architecture, XML sitemaps, and brand/product entity links.
Recognition
Does AI trust you?Being findable is not enough — AI must consider you a credible source. This stage evaluates E-E-A-T signals (author bios, credentials, experience), citations from authority sites, PR and backlink quality, original research, and topical depth.
Citation
Does AI recommend you?The stage where visibility becomes commercial value. AI cites businesses that provide response-ready content — FAQs, comparison tables, structured lists, question-as-H2 headings, and quotable snippets. Schema for rich results amplifies this further.
Acquisition
Do AI referrals convert?Visibility without conversion is wasted. This stage assesses whether your bottom-of-funnel assets, conversion paths, case studies, and overall positioning are optimised for the traffic AI sends your way.
The Citation Pyramid
Most businesses never progress beyond level two. They are understandable to AI but not citation-worthy. The gap between "AI can read your content" and "AI recommends your business" is where competitive advantage lives.
Citation-worthy
Clear, specific answers. Recently updated content. Educational rather than promotional. This is where AI citations happen — and where very few businesses operate.
Trustworthy
Citations from credible sources. Author credentials visible. Consistent messaging across all touchpoints. AI begins to prefer you over alternatives.
Understandable
Schema markup in place. Clear headings. Structured formatting. Most brands stop here — and wonder why AI doesn't recommend them.
Crawlable
AI can parse your content structure. Basic technical accessibility. This is the minimum — most brands are at least here.
GEO Content Scoring
Every Visbly audit includes a GEO Content Score based on Princeton University's Generative Engine Optimization research. Instead of vague advice like "improve your content," we score your pages against the 5 methods proven to increase AI citation rates — and tell you exactly what to fix.
Source Citations
Content that references authoritative sources, studies, and industry bodies gets cited significantly more by AI. We check whether your content backs up claims with credible references.
Statistics Usage
Specific numbers, percentages, and data points make content more extractable and quotable for AI engines. Vague claims get skipped. Precise data gets cited.
Expert Quotations
Attributed quotes from named experts, customers, or industry figures add credibility signals that AI platforms use when deciding which sources to recommend.
Authoritative Tone
Confident, expert language outperforms hedging and uncertainty. AI favours content that reads like it was written by someone who knows the subject deeply.
Readability
Clear, concise content that AI can easily extract answers from. Short paragraphs, direct statements, and structured formatting make your content AI-friendly.
Each method is scored 1-10 with specific findings from your actual content and concrete recommendations for improvement. The research source is publicly available from Princeton and Georgia Tech.
What we measure across AI platforms
AI visibility is not a single channel. We measure your presence across every surface where AI generates answers for your customers.
AI Search Engines
ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and other conversational AI platforms where users ask direct questions and receive synthesised answers.
Google AI Overviews
The AI-generated summaries that appear above traditional search results. Increasingly the first thing users see when they search.
Traditional Search Signals
The SEO signals that feed AI training data and retrieval systems. What AI knows about you starts with what's indexed about you.
Cross-Platform Analysis
We compare results across platforms because each weights signals differently. A complete picture requires measuring all of them.
Both traditional SEO and AI search matter. But AI search requires a completely different approach — answer quality over keyword density, entity recognition over backlink quantity, content recency over domain authority.
The 8 dimensions we score
Your AI Visibility Score is a composite of eight dimensions, each mapped to a stage in the AI Visibility Funnel. Together, they provide a complete picture of how AI perceives your business — from technical discoverability to commercial conversion.
Structured Data Quality
DiscoveryHow well your technical foundation supports AI parsing. Schema markup, structured data implementation, entity relationships, and machine-readable content formats.
Local Relevance
DiscoveryHow strongly AI associates your business with specific locations and service areas. NAP consistency, location pages, geo-specific content, and local entity signals.
Authority Signals
RecognitionWhether AI treats your business as a trusted source. E-E-A-T indicators, citations from credible third parties, author credentials, and brand entity strength.
Review Strength
RecognitionThe quality, recency, and sentiment of your reviews across platforms. AI systems heavily weight authentic customer feedback when forming recommendations.
Content Depth
CitationHow thoroughly your content answers the questions customers ask. Response-ready formats, FAQ structures, comparison content, and topical coverage breadth.
Intent Coverage
CitationWhether your content addresses the full range of search intents — discovery, comparison, transactional, problem-solution, and local queries.
Clarity of Positioning
AcquisitionHow clearly AI can articulate what you do, who you serve, and why someone should choose you. Ambiguous positioning leads to generic or absent recommendations.
Differentiation Strength
AcquisitionWhat makes you distinct from competitors in AI's assessment. Unique value propositions, specialisations, proprietary methods, and competitive advantages that AI can identify and communicate.
Confidence scoring
AI answers can vary. The same question asked twice might produce slightly different responses. We account for this by running multiple observations and assigning a confidence level to every finding in your report.
Consistent pattern observed across multiple queries and repeated observations. You can act on this finding with high certainty.
Pattern observed in most but not all observations. Likely accurate, but some variability exists. Worth monitoring.
Pattern observed but with significant variability. We include it for completeness, but recommend gathering more data before acting.
Our commitments
We observe, we don't manipulate
Visbly will never attempt to influence AI outputs on your behalf. Our value depends on the integrity of our measurements.
We explain everything
Every score, every finding, every recommendation comes with an explanation of how we arrived at it. No black boxes.
We report what we find
If the data shows your visibility is weak, we'll tell you. Honest reporting is more valuable than flattering numbers.
We protect your data
Your audit results are confidential. We never share individual business data, and we never use your results to help your competitors.