What platform scores competitors on generative engine prominence?
2039 checked-vendor name appearances across 420 Claude answers, captured on 22 September 2026 in our Index, show why prominence scores need a defined unit. Profound publishes Visibility, Share of Voice and Average Position; Semrush describes a competitor-median AI Visibility Score.
What we measured
Measured. Our September release and method cover fourteen software categories, ten questions per category and three Claude returns per question. Adding category-vendor presence records gives 2039 checked-name appearances across 420 answers. Several checked vendors can appear in a single answer. This panel does not benchmark either platform or measure a client's competitive position.
Reported. Profound's guide, read on 29 October 2026, defines Visibility as responses containing your brand divided by responses containing at least one brand. Its Share of Voice denominator is total brand mentions across responses. Average Position concerns where a brand is mentioned. Semrush's guide, read on 30 October, compares brand mentions with the median mention count for top industry competitors.
Reasoned. Our 2039 total cannot be substituted for the numerator in Profound's brand-specific Visibility formula. It adds checked-name appearances for multiple suppliers, rather than counting responses that name one specified brand.
What this means for you
Read the denominator. In Profound's documented Visibility measure, the base is responses containing at least one brand. A report using every captured answer as its base would be answering a different rate question. If you want a named company's prominence score, its own response numerator must also be separated from the combined appearances of all checked suppliers in our panel.
Profound's Average Position and Citations fields address different observations. The former ranks where a brand is mentioned; the latter concerns a reference or link to a particular resource. A supplier appearing early in an answer and its product page being cited are therefore separate fields in the documented analysis. The provider also describes topics and tags for grouping its prompt-driven dataset.
Semrush uses another comparison: mention frequency against an industry-competitor median. Its guide describes the AI Visibility Score in those terms, alongside separate competitor and brand reports. The competitor set used for that median is automatically identified by Semrush.
Also asked as
What platform scores competitors on generative engine prominence?
Related
- Profound Answer Engine Insights definitions
- Semrush score and report documentation
- The Index release and method
- The Manual on valid measurement
- Checking a tracker's use of live answers
Next step
Use the Free 10-question check (one engine) for a separate dated company-answer sample. No email is needed; runs are limited per network and per day, and by the site's daily allowance.
For one documented company-fact error, Fix one answer, $490. Keep the retained answer and its supporting public source with the correction.
Every figure comes from the published method, v1.1.
Prepared by the Broadcastwell team.
Page owner: Priya Nair, Management Consultant. Corrections: hello@broadcastwell.com