How we run our AI Search methodology.
This is the process behind the numbers and the work we do to help your brand show up in AI answers, not just how we score it. We begin by establishing your entity foundation, then build first-party authority through Topic Ownership. Next, we align third-party and social signals to support it, and work toward Total Graph Authority, which helps your brand stay visible through repeated AI evaluations. Throughout the process, we use measurement as our scoreboard.
the method we use to measure citation, gets cited.
The process we run, end to end.
Benchmark
We begin by running a benchmark audit and setting up a specific prompt set. This helps us see exactly where your brand stands with the assistants your customers use, before making any changes.
SEO foundation
We address the technical basics that every search engine looks at first, like crawl access, indexation, site health, and page performance. Since AI assistants and Google rely on these same fundamentals, this is where your visibility begins.
Entity foundation
We help models understand your brand by using structured data and building a clear entity and knowledge-graph presence. This way, assistants know who you are and what you're known for.
First-party authority
We grow your authority using our Topic Ownership Strategy, covering all key topics and questions. This ensures your brand appears and stays consistent, no matter how a model finds the answer.
Third-party validation
We secure outside signals that support your brand, like trusted links, citations, and mentions. Models trust brands that the rest of the web recognizes and supports.
Social utility
We boost your social signals, presence, community, and proof, showing that your brand is real, used, and recommended by real people.
Total Graph Authority
We work to align your first-party, third-party, and social signals, so they all support your brand in the same way. This helps your brand stand out, even as AI answers change.
Measurement loop
We track everything along the way, including citation share, sentiment, mention frequency, and AI-attributed traffic. Every result helps us improve the next cycle.
Everything leads to Total Graph Authority.
Total Graph Authority is when a brand's own content, outside validation, and social signals all describe it in the same way. This position stays strong even when AI answers the same question repeatedly, since it cannot be faked by just one lucky page.
Our entire process is designed to achieve this. You can find the framework and our approach to building a brand's authority on the AI Search page and in our Total Graph Authority write-up.
How we create our first-party foundation.
We control our owned authority directly by using our Topic Ownership Strategy. This approach uses a hub-and-spoke system to cover a whole query space, rather than spreading out thin pages focused on single keywords.
Each page has a clear purpose: to inspire, educate, or convert. No matter how a model finds its answer, your brand appears and stays consistent. You can find the full method, including the hub-and-spoke structure and the three content groups, on the Topic Ownership Strategy page.
Measurement shows us the results, but it is not the same as having a strategy.
Each month, we track four key metrics: mention frequency, citation share, sentiment, and AI-attributed traffic. We measure these across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews. Our method is published openly so buyers can review its rigor before making a decision.
These results show us if our work is helping a brand move toward Total Graph Authority. Each report helps guide the next steps. You can find the full specifications, prompt sets, formulas, and clear limitations on our measurement page.
Questions, answered
What is your methodology?+
Why publish your methodology?+
How do you decide which prompts to track?+
Find out how this process works for your brand.
Ask for an AI visibility audit, and we'll compare your brand and three competitors across the main AI assistants. We'll show you where the process begins, provide a 15-page report, and walk you through it in 30 minutes. There's no sales pitch, just the results.