Why SoV beats counting citations
A raw citation count has no denominator: 30 citations means nothing without knowing how many answers there were and who else was in them. SoV fixes the denominator (a stable prompt set drawn from your real keywords) and adds the competitive frame, which turns a curiosity metric into a prioritization tool. Falling SoV on money prompts is an early warning you will not get from rank tracking.
Measuring it honestly
Keep the prompt set stable between measurements, run every engine you care about (AI Overviews, AI Mode, ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity), and count both linked citations and unlinked brand mentions. Expect variance; AI answers are not deterministic, so watch the trend rather than any single reading.
Frequently asked questions
What is a good AI-search share of voice?+
There is no universal benchmark; the useful comparison is against your direct competitors on your own prompt set, and against your own last measurement. Direction beats absolutes.