Interpret Answer Engine Insights

Last updated: January 7, 2026

Answer Engine Insights breaks down your brand’s performance across several analytical dimensions. Add depth to your analysis by using the following Profound data views within Answer Engine Insights:

Filters

Filters are available throughout Answer Engine Insights. They allow you to adjust the analytical time frame, narrow the data view, and apply groupings. Filters appear as dropdown menus located beneath the top navigation bar.

Date Range Filter

Use the date range filter to select the time window of the answer engine response collection. You can choose a preset window (such as the previous 7 days) or define a custom range using the calendar cursor.

After selecting a time frame, only answer engine responses generated during that period will appear in the Answer Engine Insights charts.

Charts display differences by calculating the change between the selected time frame and a previous period. You can adjust this comparison period using the “Previous Time Period” dropdown

Attribute Filters

Several attribute filters let you narrow chart data. While each chart includes filters relevant to its context, filter functionality is consistent across charts.

To adjust filters, open the dropdown for the desired attribute and select any attribute group you wish to include in the chart view.

Visibility

The Visibility Tab in Answer Engine Insights breaks down your brand’s visibility across answer engine responses.

Visibility Score

Visibility Score is displayed as both a chart and a rankings table.

The chart shows either a line graph (day-to-day score changes) or a bar chart (performance against competitors).
The rankings table displays your brand’s rank by score relative to competitors

Share of Voice

Share of Voice is displayed as both a chart and a rankings table.

The chart shows either a line graph (day-to-day changes in share of voice) or a donut chart (percentage share compared to competitors).
The rankings table shows your brand’s rank by share of voice relative to competitors

Visibility Rankings by Topic

Visibility Rankings by Topic shows your brand’s rankings across specific topics.

Further prompt analysis is available by expanding a topic, and looking at the prompts categorized within that topic. Rankings are available for both the topic aggregation, as well as the individual prompts within that topic.

Regions

The Regions Tab in Answer Engine Insights analyzes your brand’s regional visibility through answer engine responses.

Regional analysis is available as a line chart broken down by selected regions, or a world heat map. Both serve as visualizations of your brand’s visibility across different countries.

You can use the “+ add more regions” button to request that additional countries be included in the analysis.

Citations

The Citation Tab in Answer Engine Insights assesses the prevalence of citations from your domains in answer engine responses.

Citation Share

Citation Share is displayed as both a chart and a rankings table.

The chart shows either a line graph (day-to-day changes in citation share) or a donut chart (percentage share compared to competitors).

Citation Categories

Citation Categories classify the sources AI platforms cite, helping you understand where your visibility comes from and identify opportunities.

Owned, Competition, and Custom are defined by you in Answer Engine Insights > Settings > Citation Categories. All other categories are assigned automatically but can be overridden in settings.

Category	Definition	Includes
Owned	Websites and digital properties directly owned, controlled, or managed by your brand or its related entities.	Primary domains, subdomains, product microsites, help centers, documentation sites
Competition	Websites belonging to or controlled by competitors your brand tracks.	Competitor homepages, blogs, press sections, resource pages
Earned Media	Sites whose primary purpose is publishing content. A marketer can identify a site owner, editor, or publisher to partner with. Content is the product, monetized via ads, affiliate revenue, or subscriptions. Does not include corporate blogs, company newsrooms, or lead generation sites.	News outlets, magazines, trade publications, editorial review sites (Wirecutter, PCMag), affiliate/comparison sites (NerdWallet, Investopedia), broadcast media, contributor-model publications (Forbes, HuffPost), personal blogs
PR Wire	Press release distribution services that syndicate company announcements to media outlets.	PR Newswire, Business Wire, GlobeNewswire, Accesswire, and other major PR wires
Institution	Government, educational, research, or public-interest nonprofit organizations. Institutional TLDs are auto-classified: .gov, .edu, .mil, .int, .gov., .ac., .nhs., .gouv., .gob.*	Government sites, universities, research institutions, academic publishers (Nature, arXiv), international bodies (UN, WHO), professional associations (ABA, AMA), mission-driven nonprofits (Red Cross, UNICEF), Wikipedia
Social	Platforms where users publish freely and visibility is determined by votes, algorithms, or follower graphs. Does not include vendor-owned support forums or e-commerce product reviews.	Social networks (Facebook, Instagram, X/Twitter, TikTok, LinkedIn), video platforms (YouTube), discussion platforms (Reddit, Discord), Q&A platforms (Quora, Stack Overflow), open publishing platforms (Medium, Substack), consumer review aggregators (Yelp, TripAdvisor), B2B review aggregators (G2, Capterra, TrustRadius)
Other	Sources that don't fit the above categories, typically where content exists to support selling products or services. Domains with fewer than 100 total citations are also classified as Other.	Corporate websites, SaaS, e-commerce, service businesses, company blogs/newsrooms, vendor-owned forums, marketplaces (Airbnb, Etsy), course platforms (Coursera, Udemy), job boards, directories, industry trade groups, lead generation sites
Custom	Categories you create to track specific domains or pages.	Any domains or pages you specify

Top Citation Domains

Top Citation Domains is a ranked list of the most frequently cited domains in AI-generated responses.

Top Citation Pages

Top Citation Pages is a ranked list of the most referenced web pages in AI answers. Multiple pages from the same domain can appear in this list.

Watched Pages

Watched Pages are specific URLs you choose to track for citation performance. While Top Citation Pages lists the most cited pages overall, Watched URLs allows you to define and monitor a custom set of URLs.

Citation Overview

The Citation Overview bar is the percentage of open-ended AI answers that include citations, indicated as “Used Web Search”.

Citation Relationships

The Citation Relationships chart visualizes how citations are connected across answer engines and topics.

Clusters represent groups of cited sources that share mentions for a particular topic and platform. For example, if your brand is mentioned in two different publications that are both cited by AI answer engine platforms, those publications will appear in the same cluster.

Platforms

The Platforms Tab dissects how your brand is represented across different answer engine tools. Metrics such as Visibility Score, Share of Voice, Citation Share, Sentiment, and Position are all broken down by platform performance.

The Matrix View presents a tabular view of your brand’s Visibility, Share of Voice, or Citation Share across answer engines—compared to competitors, tags, or topics. You can adjust the displayed rows and values via the “Chart Config” dropdown.

Sentiment

The Sentiment Tab in Answer Engine Insights assesses the tone in which your brand is mentioned by answer engines.

Sentiment Analysis

Sentiment Analysis contains a chart and a Positive/Negative sentiment breakdown. The chart shows a line graph that tracks how your brand’s share of voice changes day to day.

Themes

Themes is a stacked list of key themes and patterns surfaced by answer engine responses.