Is AI recommending your business? Or your competitor's?

Is AI recommending Fernway Coffee?

AI engines regularly recommend Fernway Coffee.

Across your questions: 24 of 32 questions were cited at least once this week.

What the terms mean

Cited

The AI answer linked to your site as a source. This is the outcome we are working towards: the reader is given a route to you.

Mentioned

The AI answer named your brand in the text but did not link to your site. You were part of the answer, without the traffic.

Buyer questions

Questions that do not contain your brand name, asked the way someone looking for what you sell would ask them. Searches for your brand by name are counted separately, so the headline rate is not inflated by people who already know you.

Typical range

How much the headline number would realistically move if the same week were measured again. It comes from how many questions were asked: fewer questions, wider range. It shows how firm the number is.

Answer slot

One source link inside one AI answer. Engines cite only a handful of sources per answer, so these are the finite positions every brand in your category is competing for.

Confidence band

AI engines do not give the same answer every time. Where a question was run several times, the results are averaged into a band rather than reported from a single run.

Zone

A WhyIQ guideline for the cited rate, not an industry benchmark: under 5 percent is Starting, 5 to 12 is Building, 12 to 25 is Strong, and 25 or more is Leading. No published benchmark exists for AI citation rates, and what counts as good depends on the category and the questions tracked, so read it alongside the head-to-head.

Head to head

On the same buyer questions and engines, how often the AI cited you as the first source, against the competing business that was cited first most often. Community sites, review sites, video platforms and authority sources are not counted as rivals. Each answer has one first source, so the two counts share a denominator. Measured on your questions, not an industry average.

Rate change

A change shown as +4 percent means the cited rate itself moved by four, for example from 10 percent to 14 percent. It does not mean four percent of the previous figure.

Won and lost

A question is won when an engine that did not cite you last period cites you now, and lost when the reverse happens. A new question entering the scan is counted separately, so adding questions never masquerades as progress.

Climbed and slipped

A question whose cited rate moved meaningfully against the prior period, on enough answers to trust the swing. Small-sample wobble is folded into steady rather than reported as movement.

Cited a rival

An answer that did not cite you and instead pointed the reader at another source. The quoted excerpts name who took the slot, which is what the plan works to displace.

Held slots all N weeks

This source held at least one answer slot in every week measured. An entrenched blocker worth planning around, unlike a site that appears for a single week.

Source kinds

What sort of site holds the slot, because the kind decides the move. Community (a discussion site such as Reddit): you earn a place by being genuinely useful in the thread itself, not by publishing a page. Review site: get listed and collect real customer reviews. Publisher (a blog or news site): get included in the article, or publish something more useful. Authority (an institution): be referenced by it, you will not outrank it. Video: have video that answers the question. Competitor: outrank them with a better answer.