How to measure GEO: BMR and Share of Voice

To assess GEO, I preserve the exact questions, AI interfaces, dates and original responses. Without these, a percentage can be misleading.

Brand Mention Rate and Share of Voice

BMR is the share of received AI answers that mention the target brand. Share of Voice is the brand's share of mentions among a specified set of competitors. These are different metrics with different denominators.

A brand mention is not necessarily a positive recommendation. I also review whether AI proposes the company for the actual buying need, its position in the answer and the cited sources.

BMR calculation

BMR = responses mentioning the brand / all received responses × 100%. Multiple appearances in one answer count once. Prompts already containing the brand should be separated from non-branded questions.

Hypothetical example: 25 responses mentioning the brand out of 100 give BMR 25%. A comparable follow-up retains the same questions and AI interfaces.

Trap 1: the prompt set changed

Expanding from 40 questions to 52 changes the sample. I preserve the original tracking series and measure new topics separately rather than comparing 2 different totals as one trend.

Trap 2: missing answers changed the denominator

Ten mentions in 20 answers give 50%. Ten mentions in only 18 returned answers give 55.6%, even though the number of positive answers did not increase. Both expected and received totals should be reported.

Trap 3: a citation was mistaken for a recommendation

A domain in an AI source list does not necessarily mean the company was recommended. Automated brand matching needs checking, particularly for ambiguous names.

MethodLab measurement example

Across the same 6 prompts and 7 interfaces, MethodLab BMR increased from 19.0% to 52.4%. Three platforms reached 6 of 6 mentions while Yandex Search with Alice remained at zero. Platform-level figures explain the aggregate.

Repeatable reporting

1. Fix the commercial prompt matrix.
2. Save original responses, dates and source links.
3. Count BMR, Share of Voice and actual recommendation context separately.
4. Compare identical matrices and measure leads and revenue independently.

Read the industry GEO guides for business-specific examples.