The appearance score

The appearance score is the percentage of answers in which your brand was named.

If 400 questions were asked for your workspace this week and your brand came up in 136 of the answers, the appearance score is 34%.

Why this is the headline

Because appearing is a fact. You can open any answer and see the brand there in the text, or see that it is not. Nothing has been interpreted on your behalf, so there is nothing to argue about and nothing for a client to take on trust.

Every other number in Keylight supports this one. This is the number in the weekly email, in the PDF, and the only number ever quoted on its own.

What it deliberately ignores

How well you were treated. Being named as the top recommendation and being named as the expensive one to avoid both count as one appearance.

That is a real limitation and it is why the prominence score exists. But appearance stays the headline, because the moment a number depends on our reading of a sentence, it becomes a number a client can dispute.

What it is not

It is not a rank, because AI answers have no position one. It is not traffic, and it is not a prediction of traffic. It is how often the engines name you.