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

# Competitors: Benchmark Your AI Presence Side by Side

> Compare your brand's AI visibility against rivals across every platform. Track mentions, citations, sentiment, and scores side by side in one dashboard.

The Competitors dashboard lets you track how your brand performs against specific rivals across all AI platforms CogNerd monitors. Rather than guessing where competitors appear in AI-generated answers, you get a structured side-by-side comparison — covering visibility scores, mention counts, citation rates, and sentiment — so you can see exactly where you lead, where you trail, and where to focus your optimization efforts.

## Add competitors

<Steps>
  <Step title="Go to Competitors">
    Navigate to **Dashboard → Competitors**. If you haven't added any competitors yet, you'll see a prompt to enter your first one.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Enter a competitor">
    Type the competitor's brand name and website URL. CogNerd uses both to identify mentions accurately, especially for brands whose names are also common words.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Save and track">
    Click **Add Competitor**. CogNerd begins including this brand in your next analysis run. Competitor data does not populate retroactively — it appears in analyses run after the competitor is added.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Add more competitors">
    Repeat for each competitor you want to track. You can add and remove competitors at any time from the Competitors settings panel.
  </Step>
</Steps>

<Note>
  The number of competitors you can track simultaneously depends on your plan. Check **Settings → Plan** to see your limit. Competitor tracking does not cost additional credits — competitor data is collected as part of your standard brand analysis (30 credits).
</Note>

## Read the comparison view

Once you've run at least one analysis with competitors added, the Competitors dashboard shows a comparison table with one column per brand — your brand plus each competitor.

### Comparison table

Each row in the table represents a metric measured across all AI platforms:

| Metric                | What it shows                                                           |
| --------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Overall score**     | The 0–100 AI Visibility Score for each brand                            |
| **Total mentions**    | Number of times each brand appeared in AI-generated responses           |
| **Citation rate**     | Percentage of responses that cited or linked to each brand's website    |
| **Sentiment**         | Dominant sentiment (positive / neutral / negative) across all platforms |
| **Platform coverage** | Number of distinct AI platforms where each brand appeared               |

Click any brand name to expand a detailed breakdown by platform.

### Platform-by-platform breakdown

The platform breakdown view shows how each brand performs on each individual AI platform — ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, DeepSeek, Grok, Perplexity, Microsoft Copilot, You.com, and others. This is where you spot the most actionable gaps.

For example, if a competitor scores 75 on Perplexity while you score 20, that's a platform where they have structured their content or citations in a way that Perplexity's AI engine strongly prefers — and a specific target for your next optimization cycle.

<Tip>
  Sort the platform breakdown by the competitor with the highest score on each platform. This tells you which competitor has cracked each platform's ranking signals, and whose content and citation profile is worth studying.
</Tip>

### Score trends

If you've run multiple analyses with the same competitors tracked, the trend chart shows score trajectories over time for all brands. Use this to:

* Confirm that your optimizations are closing a gap with a specific competitor
* Detect when a competitor pulls ahead suddenly — often a signal they've deployed new content or GEO assets
* Identify which platforms are most volatile versus stable

## Interpret the data

<AccordionGroup>
  <Accordion title="A competitor has a much higher score — where do I start?">
    Open the platform breakdown and find the platforms where the gap is largest. Then run an **AEO Report** to identify structural issues in your own setup — missing schema, low citation authority, or content gaps. Start with GEO Assets to give AI crawlers a clearer picture of your brand, then use Content Studio to publish content that matches the queries where your competitor appears and you don't.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="A competitor has a lower score but higher citations — what does that mean?">
    It means AI models are linking to their content as a source but not necessarily recommending their brand by name. This is sometimes a sign that their website has high authority in AI training data but their brand identity is less distinct. You can learn from their citation sources while building stronger branded mentions for yourself.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="A competitor appears on platforms where I have zero score — what should I do?">
    Zero-score platforms are your clearest gaps. Study what content the competitor has published that causes AI models on that platform to surface them. Use Content Studio to create similar content optimized for your brand, and deploy GEO Assets so the platform's AI crawlers can index your site correctly.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="My score is higher than all competitors — is there still value in tracking them?">
    Yes. Competitor tracking is most valuable over time, not just as a snapshot. A competitor who is rising quickly may close your lead before you notice. Keeping them tracked lets you see their trajectory early and respond before the gap narrows.
  </Accordion>
</AccordionGroup>

## Manage your competitor list

To remove a competitor, go to **Dashboard → Competitors**, click the competitor's name, and select **Remove**. Removing a competitor stops tracking them in future analyses but does not delete historical data — you can still see their results in analyses that ran while they were tracked.

To rename or update a competitor's website URL, remove them and re-add them with the corrected details.

<Warning>
  Changing a competitor's brand name or URL resets their tracking. Historical data from before the change remains in old analysis records but is not linked to the updated competitor entry.
</Warning>