Competitive Rank

What Competitive Rank measures

Competitive Rank uses the same 10 prompts as Share of Voice but parses for ordering: when AI lists vendors, where do you rank? The score is your average position across all probed prompts where you appeared, normalised against the number of competitors AI named.

A brand mentioned 8 times at average position 7/10 has lower Rank than a brand mentioned 4 times at average position 2/10. SoV says "AI knows you exist"; Rank says "AI thinks of you first."

How position is parsed

• format_list_numbered Numbered lists — "1. Acme · 2. Beta · 3. Gamma..." — ordinal position is direct.
• view_list Bulleted lists / prose — LLMs typically list strongest options first; we use mention-order as a proxy for rank.
• trending_up Recommended winners — "We recommend Acme..." or "Acme is the best choice..." statements explicitly elevate that brand to position 1.
• leaderboard Comparison-table outputs — if AI generates a table, leftmost column = position 1.

How to improve Competitive Rank

• verified Lift AI Brand Recognition first. Brands AI strongly recognises tend to surface earlier in lists. Wikipedia + Common Crawl footprint matter here.
• format_quote Lift Citation Depth. When AI cites your own pages directly, it tends to rank you higher because it has high-quality first-party data to ground on.
• workspace_premium Get listed in "Best X" articles. AI synthesises from these. If you're #1 in 3 of the top 5 "Best X for Y" listicles, AI tends to put you #1 too.
• grade Specialise rather than generalise. "Best CRM for SaaS agencies under 50 people" gives you a winnable narrow category. "Best CRM" gives you Salesforce as a competitor — you'll never beat them on Rank.

Frequently asked questions

• How is Competitive Rank different from Share of Voice?expand_more
  Share of Voice counts mentions: how often you appear in AI answers. Competitive Rank measures ordering: when AI lists vendors, where do you rank? You can have high SoV but low Rank (mentioned a lot but always last) or low SoV but high Rank (rarely mentioned but always #1 when you are).
• What if AI ranks me last among 10 competitors?expand_more
  Position 10/10 is still better than not being mentioned at all. AI tends to surface 3–5 named brands per query — being in the top 5 means you're a recognised category leader. Position 10 means AI knows you exist but doesn't think of you first. Push Citation Depth and AI Brand Recognition to lift Rank.
• Does AIVerdict tell me which competitors are beating me?expand_more
  Yes. The Competitive Rank section of the audit report lists every competitor brand AI mentioned alongside you, with their average rank position vs yours. Use that as a cue list for what categories to compete on.