Mention Tracking and Authority Scoring

AI Presence tracks every external mention of your entity across published media, categorizing each one by type, scoring it for authority, and archiving it in a searchable credibility library. The system recognizes seven distinct mention types that capture the full spectrum of how an organization or founder can appear in third-party content. Each mention type carries different authority weight, and together they form the foundation of your entity spread — the measure of how diversely and deeply your entity appears across the media landscape.

Mention tracking is not a vanity metric collector. Every mention logged in AI Presence connects back to the content and outreach systems that generated it. When a pitch from the outreach system results in published coverage, the mention is created automatically with full provenance — linking the original content, the pitch, the journalist, and the outlet. This closed loop means you can trace any authority gain back to the specific action that produced it.

The credibility library archives every mention with its full context: the publication name, article URL, publish date, mention type, authority score, and a text excerpt showing exactly how your entity was referenced. Over time, this library becomes a comprehensive record of your organization’s media footprint — useful for press kits, investor materials, partnership discussions, and AI citation verification.

Seven Mention Types

AI Presence classifies every mention into one of seven types. Each type represents a different relationship between your entity and the content in which it appears. The type determines how the mention is weighted in authority calculations and how it contributes to entity spread analysis.

• AUTHORED — Content written and published by the entity or its founder. Bylined articles, guest posts, and opinion pieces where your organization is the credited author. Authored mentions demonstrate subject-matter expertise and direct thought leadership.
• CONTRIBUTED — Content where the entity provided substantial input but did not write the piece. This includes data contributions, research partnerships, and co-authored reports where your organization is credited as a contributor.
• EDITORIAL — Third-party coverage where a journalist or editor independently chose to write about your entity. Editorial mentions carry the highest authority weight because they represent unsolicited recognition from the media.
• QUOTED_EXPERT — Your founder or representative is quoted as a subject-matter expert in someone else’s article. Expert quotes signal authority to both human readers and AI retrieval systems that parse entity-expertise associations.
• PRODUCT_REFERENCE — Your product, service, or platform is mentioned in a review, comparison, roundup, or recommendation list. Product references drive direct awareness and contribute to commercial entity recognition in AI systems.
• FRAMEWORK_MENTION — A branded methodology, framework, or concept created by your organization is referenced by name in third-party content. Framework mentions are especially valuable for AI citation because they create named entity associations with specific knowledge domains.
• FOUNDER_MENTION — The individual founder is mentioned by name, separate from the organization. Founder mentions build personal authority and strengthen the entity-founder association that AI systems use to answer queries about who leads or created a given organization.

Authority Scoring

Every mention receives an authority score on a scale of one to five. The score is calculated from three factors: outlet tier, mention depth, and editorial context. A Tier 1 editorial mention where your entity is the primary subject of the article scores a five. A Tier 5 product reference in a roundup list scores a one. Most mentions fall between two and four.

Outlet tier is the first factor. Higher-tier outlets confer more authority per mention. A single mention in a Tier 1 publication typically carries more weight than three mentions in Tier 4 outlets. The tier system is described in detail on the outreach management page.

Mention depth measures how prominently your entity appears in the content. A passing reference in a single sentence scores lower than a multi-paragraph discussion. Being the primary subject of an article scores higher than being one of several companies mentioned in a trend piece. The system categorizes depth as primary, secondary, or passing.

Editorial context considers the nature of the coverage. Positive or neutral editorial coverage scores higher than paid or sponsored placements. Independent editorial decisions carry more weight than content that resulted from a direct pitch, though pitched coverage still contributes meaningful authority when published through editorial review.

Authority scores aggregate into your overall entity authority metric, which the analytics dashboard tracks over time. This score is one of the strongest predictors of whether AI retrieval systems will cite your entity — because the same signals that drive human editorial authority are the signals that large language models use to determine which entities are credible sources on a given topic.