If your domain sources appear in AI responses but your brand visibility is low, this isn’t automatically a reason to worry. Understanding how brand visibility is calculated will help clarify the difference.
What is brand visibility?
Brand visibility measures how often your brand name appears in the main body of an AI answer. Each time the AI explicitly mentions your brand (e.g., "Apple" or "Nike") in its response, it counts toward your brand visibility score.
This shows how prominently your brand is featured in AI replies. We divide the number of prompts with a brand mention by the number of total prompts to get the percentage.
What are sources?
Sources are the content the AI used or cited to create its reply. This could be pages from your website or blog, but also from competitors or any third party website that AI models consider relevant to come up with a reply. Your website can appear as a source without your brand being mentioned by name. Conversely, your brand can be mentioned without your website being used as a source.
Why the difference matters
The distinction matters because high source usage doesn't automatically mean high brand visibility. For example, an AI might use data from your website but refer to it generically (e.g., "according to industry reports") rather than naming your brand specifically.
You can read more about this in our documentation.