Brand mention

Mentions and citations move differently and diagnose different problems. Plenty of businesses get mentioned without ever being cited: the engines have learned about them from directories, reviews and forum threads, not from the business's own site. That pattern tells you your reputation is circulating but your website is not pulling its weight as a source. The reverse, cited but rarely mentioned in recommendation questions, suggests your content answers niche queries but your brand has not entered the engines' shortlists for the commercial questions that matter. Tracking mentions across engines and across time also catches the moments worth reacting to: a rival suddenly appearing in answers you used to own, or your name vanishing after an engine refreshes its sources. Counting mentions properly needs alias matching too, because engines abbreviate, misspell and rebrand you freely.