What goes into the score
- Earned mentions only. Answers to questions that never named you. Being named when asked about you by name proves the engine can look you up, not that it would recommend you, so it does not count.
- Weighted by intent. A recommendation in a discovery answer ("who should I call") moves the score more than a passing reference in a comparison.
- Every engine, every run. The score averages across the engines your plan covers, so one engine that loves you cannot mask three that have never heard of you.
- Evidence required. A mention only counts when the grading model can quote the sentence. Vague answers that gesture at "local providers" score nothing.
What the bands mean
The number comes with a band that says in words what it means, from businesses the engines have never encountered, through those that appear only when the engine searches the live web, up to businesses that engines name unprompted and confirm from memory. The band is what to read first; the number is for tracking movement.
Share of answers
Next to your score sits the share of answers for every brand the engines named across the same questions. It is the closest thing AI search has to market share, and it usually explains the score faster than anything else: if a rival holds 60 percent of the discovery answers in your town, the fix list is about closing that gap.
What a score is not
It is not a ranking, because AI answers have no positions. It is not permanent, because answers vary between runs; the score describes the run it came from, which is why Renomly shows change over time rather than a single snapshot. And it is not a promise: no tool can guarantee that an engine will recommend you. What the score guarantees is that every point has a quote behind it.
See how the score is produced on the how it works page, and how competitor mentions feed the share of answers.