> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.zued.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Share of Voice

> How much of the answer your brand owns when it appears.

**Share of Voice (SoV)** measures how much of the answer you own when you appear. In the AI responses that [mention](/metrics/signals#mentions) your brand, it's your share of all brand mentions relative to every other brand in those same responses.

SoV is conditional on appearing. Whether you appear at all is a separate question, answered by [Appearance Rate](/metrics/appearance-rate). Read the two together: Appearance Rate tells you how reliably you make it into the answer, SoV tells you how dominant you are once you're in it.

## How it's calculated

```
Share of Voice = Your brand mentions ÷ All brand mentions in answers where you appear × 100
```

Brand [mentions](/metrics/signals#mentions) are extracted and normalized from every AI response collected in your project. Normalization handles variations like abbreviations and alternate spellings so they all count toward the same brand.

Only brands the AI recommends, compares, or discusses in its own prose are counted. Brand names that appear only inside citation links or source attributions are not counted as mentions. See [Mentions, Citations & Sources](/metrics/signals) for the full distinction.

## What it tells you

SoV measures dominance: when the AI brings you up, is the answer about you, or are you one name in a long list?

The combination with Appearance Rate is what makes it actionable. High SoV with low Appearance Rate means you dominate the few answers you reach, so the bottleneck is getting into more answers. High Appearance Rate with low SoV means you're reliably present but diluted, so the lever is stronger positioning and depth. The [competitive landscape](/platform/competitive-landscape) plots exactly these two axes for every brand the engines mention.

SoV remains a **secondary metric**. A high SoV with a low [Alignment Score](/metrics/alignment-score) means you're being mentioned but possibly misrepresented. Address alignment first, then use SoV to track competitive position over time.

## Per-engine breakdown

SoV is tracked per engine. Your aggregate SoV can look healthy while you're absent from a specific engine entirely. Check per-engine breakdowns to catch engine-specific blind spots.

<Info>
  Since zued audits weekly, SoV is a directional indicator, not a real-time measurement. It's reliable enough to spot trends and compare engines, but take individual data points with a grain of salt.
</Info>