What is authority score, and how is it different from Domain Authority?
Authority score rates the standing of the sources citing you, in the eyes of the AI engines. Domain Authority and Domain Rating rate your own domain, based on backlinks, in the eyes of an SEO tool.
Different object, different judge. You can hold a respectable DR and a weak authority score, which usually means your backlinks come from places AI engines don't treat as evidence. The reverse also happens: a young domain cited in a few highly-trusted sources.
Authority score is the metric off-site work moves, and it's why some sites with clean technical foundations still don't get cited.
Related FAQs
Can I see the actual AI answers behind my score?
Yes — the citation map shows which sources were cited for which queries, per engine, so you can see what the engines drew on rather than take it on faith.
What is prompt coverage, and why is mine low when my score is decent?
Prompt coverage measures how much of your category's question space you appear in. A high score with low coverage means you're known for one thing only.
How long until my score improves after I make changes?
Weeks, not days — and it varies by fix type. Structural changes can register in one to three weeks; third-party mentions take one to three months.
Why do the four engines give me such different results?
Because they work differently: Perplexity is retrieval-heavy, ChatGPT blends training with browsing, Gemini leans on Google, Claude cites conservatively.
The score is an estimate — so how much should I trust it?
Trust the direction more than the value. It's reliable for tracking your own movement and comparing competitors on identical queries, not as an absolute.
Is my score comparable to another company's?
Only within the same query set. Two companies in different categories are measured against different questions, so comparing raw numbers is meaningless.
What counts as a good score?
Bands rather than a target number, because what's achievable depends heavily on your category. 0-25 is effectively invisible; 51-75 is reliably visible.
How is the visibility score calculated?
Four inputs, combined into a single 0-100 figure: mention rate, citation rate, prompt coverage and source authority. Citation and coverage dominate.
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Related terms
Domain Authority
Traditional SEO BasicsdDomain authority is a third-party score that estimates how likely a website is to rank well in search results, based largely on its backlink profile.
