Troubleshooting
Visibility is zero
Why the Visibility page shows 0% or --, how to tell the causes apart, and what to change: setup, filters, aliases or your prompts.
Two different things can look like "nothing" on the Visibility page. 0% is a measurement: engines answered your prompts and none of the answers named you. --% means nothing was measured for what you are looking at. They have different causes, so start by working out which one you have.
First, read the card
Look at the value on the Visibility card:
- --% on a brand that has never completed a tracking run: nothing has been measured yet. See A brand with no results yet.
- --% on a brand with completed runs: the filters leave no answers. See Filters that exclude everything.
- 0%: answers exist and none of them named you. See Answers that do not name you.
If the page shows a card instead of the dashboard, the brand is still being set up. That is covered next.
A brand with no results yet
- Finish setting up tracking. The brand's setup stopped at the step where you choose topics. Finish Setup takes you back to it; the research is already saved.
- Set Up AI Visibility Tracking. The brand has no prompts and no runs. Set Up Prompts opens the Prompts page.
- The first run is in progress. The page shows the run's live progress and switches to the dashboard when it completes.
- We couldn't finish your first analysis. The first run failed. Retry analysis starts it again, or Retry setup when the brand has no prompts yet.
After the first run, a new run lands every 7 days. See Snapshots for how runs are scheduled.
Filters that exclude everything
Every filter in the row at the top of the page narrows the answers the cards count. A combination can leave none:
- All Platforms, All Locations, All Categories and All Themes each narrowed to options that no answer matches together, for example one engine and a category that engine has no answers for.
- Branded chosen in the prompt filter when none of your prompts are flagged as branded. Ranqo writes unbranded prompts by default, so this is a common one.
Set each filter back to its "All" option and the cards return. A date range with no run in it does not cause --% on its own: when the range holds no run, the cards show the last completed run before it, and the chart says which run that was. See Carried values.
Answers that do not name you
An answer counts as naming you when it uses your brand's name, or one of your aliases, to refer to you. Before deciding AI does not know you, read what it actually said:
Open the answers
Search each answer for your brand
Look for the ways people refer to you: an abbreviation, a former name, a product name, the legal name, the name without a suffix like "Inc" or "App".
Decide which case you have
If the answers name you under a different name, fix your aliases (below). If they name other companies and not you, that is the real finding.
Missing aliases
If AI calls you something Ranqo is not listening for, add it as an alias. Open Edit in the brand's Home page header, add the name under Aliases, and save. If the brand name itself is wrong, click it at the top of the edit page to change it.
Aliases apply from the next run. Answers already collected are not scored again, so past runs keep their numbers. Add only names people really use for you: an alias is matched as written, and a common word can be counted where it does not mean you. See Brand settings.
A cited page is not a mention
AI can link to a page on your site while writing about something else. That link is recorded as a citation on the Sources page, but it does not count toward visibility unless the answer text names you.
Named late in a long answer
Before an answer is read, Ranqo reformats it, and the reformatting sees only the first 8,000 characters. When the reformatted version is used, a brand named only after that point is not counted, and the answer you open shows that version, so it can end before your name would appear. See Why numbers change.
One engine at zero
Some engines are zero for reasons of their own:
- Google AI Overviews. When Google shows no AI Overview for a prompt, that answer counts as one that does not name you.
- Grok answers without live web search, from what its model already knows.
AI names other companies
If the answers are real, name your competitors and not you, then 0% is accurate. It is common for a smaller brand on unbranded prompts, which ask about your category without naming you. That is the point of them: they show whether a buyer who has not heard of you would find you. See Visibility.
From here, the rest of Ranqo is about changing that number:
- Sources shows which sites AI reads when it answers your prompts.
- The Action Center turns your results into prioritized recommendations.
- Outreach turns the forum threads and articles AI cites in your category into a ranked work queue.
Also check that your prompts are ones an answer can name a product for. A prompt that gets a definition or a how-to essay back rarely names any company. See Prompts.
Paused prompts do not set visibility to zero
Pausing stops measuring; it does not erase what was measured. If every prompt is paused, a bar on the Visibility page says tracking is paused until you add some, with an Add Prompts button, and no new run happens. The cards keep showing the last run's results. The same is true when the whole brand is paused with Pause on its Home page. See Prompts.