SOV (Share of Voice)— definition

• You can see your relative position vs. competitors: Rather than the absolute number (12 citations for your company), you see your presence within the whole industry
• You can grasp market-wide movement: Whether total citations are rising or falling shows how much your industry is using AI search
• Goal-setting becomes easier: It's easier to set quantitative targets like "grow SOV from 5% to 15%"

Originally a marketing metric, redefined for the AI era

SOV was originally a metric used in mass marketing such as TV advertising.

• Original meaning: "How much your ad stood out within all TV advertising"
• Redefined for GEO: "Among the sources cited when an AI answers, how often is your company referenced"

How to read SOV (example in GEO Meter)

In GEO Meter's Pro plan, you can observe SOV per Topic:

By splitting it this way per Topic, you can see at a glance where you are winning vs. losing.

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