What one result is
A Citano result is one question, asked of one named AI engine, at a recorded time. The answer can show whether your store was named, its position, the competitors and the sources. It is not a permanent ranking.
Why results change
AI providers update models, retrieval systems and indexes. Answers can also vary between repeated requests. Citano treats that variation as part of the measurement problem: it keeps engine coverage explicit and uses repeated comparable scans for trends.
How questions are selected
The store’s public information seeds a business profile and a bounded set of buyer-style recommendation questions. The question set must match the store’s real category and market; generic prompts create generic reports.
What a visibility score means
The score summarizes mentions within the questions and engines that actually completed. A partial scan is not silently counted as total failure, and the underlying questions remain more important than the headline number.
What improvements mean
Citano can draft clearer, more useful owned-site content and identify relevant third-party pages appearing in sources. It cannot guarantee inclusion, manufacture trustworthy coverage or control an AI provider’s output.
API answers versus the apps
API responses and consumer AI products can differ. Citano labels actual engine coverage and does not claim that one API observation reproduces every interface, browsing mode or personalized answer.
Research standard
Product claims are checked first against official search-engine, AI-provider, web-standard and platform documentation. Academic results are labeled as research findings, not universal ranking rules. Vendor studies are supporting evidence, not the foundation.
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