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Gauge measures the answers it collects for your prompts. Here’s how to read the numbers.

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What counts as a mention or citation?

An answer is the response an AI model gives to a question you track.
  • A brand mention means your brand is named in the response text. “Acme offers a shared inbox” mentions Acme. Recommendations, comparisons, and criticisms can all contain mentions.
  • A citation means the answer includes a link or source reference to a page, such as a numbered footnote or a source card. A citation to your page means AI presents it as a source for the answer.
For example, AI could explain shared inboxes and cite Acme’s guide without naming Acme in the response text. That counts toward citation rate. If the same answer also says “Acme offers a shared inbox,” it counts toward visibility and toward that page’s mention rate for Acme. An AI bot visiting your page is recorded separately as bot traffic.

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One example, three metrics

Imagine Gauge collects 100 answers: A page can be cited without your brand being mentioned. Your brand can also appear because another website talks about it.

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Compare like with like

Use the same prompts, engines, and filters when comparing dates. Adding prompts or an engine changes what you’re measuring. Check several days and open the actual answers before deciding why a number moved. A change after publishing an article does not prove the article caused it.

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What does prompt volume mean?

Volume comes from search keywords linked to a prompt. It does not count how many people asked that exact question in ChatGPT. Gauge shows the highest-volume keyword linked to the prompt or topic. Use it to help prioritize questions, alongside what you know about your customers.

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Missing data or zero?

Blank traffic metrics can also mean an integration needs connecting. See Troubleshooting data.

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Calculation details

Topics’ visibility uses non-branded prompts. Rankings and Citations exclude branded prompts by default. Questions that name a brand are better for checking how AI describes it. See Branded Prompts.New prompts and engines only have data from when Gauge began collecting their answers.
Visibility counts each answer once per brand, even if the answer names it repeatedly. Domain citation rate counts answers citing any page on that domain; several citations to the same domain still count as one answer.
All Categories combines the areas you track. If you select multiple owned brands, an answer mentioning any of them counts once toward combined visibility.Daily rates combine answers from the selected engines. Engines with more collected answers contribute more to the result. Select one engine to compare it on its own.
The Performance Metrics trend compares the first and last plotted values. A move from 20% to 30% is an increase of 10 percentage points.On Topics, Visibility (Avg) covers the selected dates. Visibility (Current) uses the last date in that range, which may still be processing.
One answer can mention several brands. Each brand’s visibility is calculated independently, so the percentages do not need to add up to 100%.