Named vs. cited: two different kinds of presence

In a recorded AI answer, two very different things can happen to your business. The assistant can name you — include you in its recommendation. Or it can cite you — treat your own public materials as a source worth quoting while it helps someone decide.

These are not the same event, and they do not have the same fix. That is why Logres measures them as two separate dimensions: Visibility and Authority.

Visibility: are you in the shortlist?

Visibility measures how often and how prominently a business was named in recorded recommendation-style answers — the "who should I call" questions. A low score can mean the business was rarely named, appeared lower in lists, or showed up inconsistently in the measured sample.

It does not mean every customer or AI product fails to know the business. It describes the recorded sample, on the record.

Authority: does the answer lean on your materials?

Authority measures how often recorded decision-support answers cited the business's own public materials — the "how do I choose" and "what should I expect" questions, where assistants assemble guidance from sources.

It is not a general website-authority, link, or SEO ranking score. It is a citation-credit measurement on the recorded answers where citation was even possible.

Why the split matters

The two dimensions diverge in practice, and the divergence is the diagnosis:

• Named but not cited — the market knows you exist, but your owned materials are not informing the answers. The work points at content and topical coverage.
• Cited but not named — your materials shape the advice, but the recommendation goes elsewhere. The work points at positioning and presence in the decision moment.
• Neither — start with the baseline evidence and prioritize; there is no shortcut around the diagnosis.

Averaging these into one number would hide exactly the pattern that tells you what to do. Separate scores keep the evidence legible.

Frequently asked questions

Can a business score high on one and low on the other?

Yes, and that combination is common enough to be a standard diagnostic pattern. The scores are reported separately precisely so the gap is visible.

Is Authority the same as domain authority in SEO?

No. Authority here is a citation-credit measurement on recorded AI answers — whether your own materials were cited in decision-support responses. It is not a link metric and not a search ranking score.

Which matters more?

They answer different questions. Visibility asks whether you enter the buyer's options; Authority asks whether your materials inform the buyer's decision. Which to prioritize depends on the baseline evidence, not on a generic ranking of the two.

This note is for information only. Logres measurements describe recorded AI responses for a defined set of questions at a point in time; they are not a guarantee that any AI system will name, cite, or recommend a business in the future, and they do not predict rankings, traffic, leads, or revenue.