Reading your first report

Your first report can look like a lot of numbers. This guide explains each one in plain terms, tells you what good looks like compared to real benchmarks, and helps you decide what to do first.

What you'll learn

• What citation rate, visibility score, and per-engine breakdown mean
• What the 48% aggregate benchmark means for your results
• How to identify the one thing worth actioning first

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Opening your report

Go to /reports. The first report you see covers the period since your keywords were added. If you have only just set up, it may cover as little as 24 hours. That is fine: the numbers will stabilise as more checks run.

The report has three main sections: the summary row, the per-engine breakdown, and the per-keyword table. Start at the top and work down.

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The summary row

Citation rate

Your citation rate is the percentage of checks where at least one AI engine cited your business. If Outercite ran 100 checks across all your keywords and your business appeared in 42 of them, your citation rate is 42%.

The aggregate citation rate across all Outercite workspaces is 48%. This is your first benchmark. If you are above 48%, you are performing better than the average tracked business. If you are below, you have clear room to grow.

Visibility score

The visibility score is a 0-100 index that weighs your citation rate against position and engine coverage. A citation on Perplexity counts, but a citation where you appear first and across three engines counts more. The aggregate visibility score is 74/100.

Think of citation rate as "how often" and visibility score as "how prominently". You want both to rise over time.

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The per-engine breakdown

Below the summary row, you will see your citation rate for each of the six engines. For context, here are the aggregate benchmarks:

Look for two things in your own numbers:

1. Engines where you outperform. Understand why: is it a particular keyword type, or strong domain authority in a specific area?
2. Engines where you underperform significantly. Google AI (38% aggregate) is the hardest engine to win. If you are well below benchmark on Perplexity (58%), that is worth investigating first.

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The per-keyword table

Scroll down to see each keyword listed with its own citation rate, the engines that cited you, and a confidence score.

Confidence score

The confidence score reflects how certain the verification pipeline is that the citation is real. Outercite uses a two-model system: the deep-analysis model reads the AI response and identifies mentions of your business, then a second, independent model audits those findings. Only citations both models agree on are counted. A high confidence score means both models agreed clearly. A low score means the mention was ambiguous.

For your first report, as a rough rule of thumb, prioritising keywords with higher confidence scores gives you the cleanest, most verified citations to build on.

What "zero citations" on a keyword means

If a keyword has zero citations, the most common causes are:

• Your website does not clearly cover that topic
• The prompt is informational, so AI engines answered with an explanation rather than a list of businesses
• A competitor has more authoritative content and is capturing all citations

The intent classification label next to each keyword is a quick diagnostic. If the system classified your prompt as "informational", the zero-citation result makes sense. Rewrite it to be more decision-oriented.

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What "good" looks like at different stages

Progress varies widely depending on your industry, location, keyword set, and how much existing web presence you have. In the early weeks, your baseline is still establishing and citation rates are often lower. As you act on insights and your content improves, you should expect a gradual upward trend. Once your rate stabilises at or above the 48% aggregate benchmark, focus shifts to share of voice relative to your competitors. There is no single timeline that applies to all businesses.

If you added competitors during setup, the per-keyword table shows their citation rates alongside yours. The gap between your rate and a competitor's rate is your share of voice opportunity.

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What to action first

After your first report, resist the urge to change everything. Do this instead:

1. Find the keyword with the biggest gap between your citation rate and 48% (or your competitor's rate if it is higher).
2. Open the insights feed and check whether Outercite has already generated a suggested action for that keyword.
3. Take one action: update a page, add a piece of content, or adjust the keyword to be more specific.
4. Wait a week and check whether the citation rate moved.

Small, measured changes with clear before/after data are far more useful than a large redesign that makes it impossible to know what worked.

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Try this in Outercite

Open your report now at /reports and find the keyword with the lowest citation rate among your buying-intent prompts. Check its confidence scores and per-engine breakdown, then look at the insights feed for a suggested action.

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