Noise bands

AI answers change from run to run even when nothing about your brand has. The same prompt, asked a week later, can name you one time and leave you out the next. A noise band is the size of that ordinary movement for one kind of metric. In the Action Center, a recommendation's drawer uses it to decide whether a reading is a change or No detectable change.

The bands#

In the drawer, a lift must be larger than the band for its metric, in percentage points, to show as a number:

Each recommendation is measured on one metric, named under Measured in its drawer: Overall visibility, one engine's mention rate (such as Gemini mention rate) or one prompt category's visibility (such as Discovery visibility). The band for that kind of metric applies.

How the bands were measured#

The bands are measured, not chosen. In August 2026 Ranqo took every pair of consecutive completed runs for brands with at least three runs: 81 brands and 851 runs. For each pair it computed the three kinds of metric with the same calculation the Action Center uses to take a reading, and recorded how far each one moved.

That gave 770 run-to-run comparisons of overall visibility, 2,290 of a single engine and 3,659 of a single prompt category. Each band is the 95th percentile of those movements, rounded to a whole point: about 95 of every 100 measured run-to-run changes were smaller than the band.

Using the product's own calculation matters. A band worked out any other way would describe a different number from the one you see.

The bands describe the change between two consecutive runs. A reading compares the run a recommendation was written from with a later run, usually several runs apart.

Why the bands are wide#

• Each answer is a large step. A brand tracking 20 prompts on an engine moves that engine's rate by 5 points with every single answer that names it or stops naming it.
• Engines vary their answers. A mention seen for the first time is still there in the next run only about half the time.
• A category is the noisiest. It holds only some of your prompts, so each answer in it is a bigger share of the total. That is why the category band is the widest, even though it feels like it should be the most precise.
• Overall visibility is the steadiest. It is combined across every prompt and engine, so single answers move it least.

What happens inside the band#

In the recommendation's drawer and on its Done card, a reading inside the band is shown as No detectable change in place of a number. After the verdict window has passed, the drawer adds that the metric moved less than its normal week-to-week swing; see Measurement windows for how that label is worked out. When the reading compared two runs of answers, the drawer shows answers won instead of points, whatever the size of the change in points, and a Done card whose reading sits inside the band shows the answers won, when there is at least one, in place of No detectable change. See Confirmed wins.

The notice that appears after you take a reading applies the same band: a reading larger than it is reported in points, and a smaller one as the answers won or No detectable change.

Verified Lift, the fourth card on the page, adds up the positive readings larger than the band for each card's own metric, the same band the drawer and the Done card apply. The Action Center guide lists what else it includes and leaves out.

Without a band, a total like Verified Lift would become a running total of chance. A set of recommendations nobody acted on would still produce a positive total, because some runs happen to move up.

The expected outcome in each recommendation's drawer uses the same band: when there are enough answers left to win, it says how many you would need before the change stands out from normal movement.

A small real change can still be found#

Inside the band does not mean nothing happened. It means the overall number cannot tell a real change from an ordinary week. When it writes a recommendation, Ranqo also records which specific answers you were missing and later checks whether you won them and kept them. That can confirm wins that are too small to clear the band. See Confirmed wins.

Where the bands apply#

In the dashboard, the bands are used only by the Action Center drawer's Lift step, the lift chips on Done cards and in the List and Matrix views, the notice after a reading, the Verified Lift card, each recommendation's expected outcome, and the Rising marker in the Competitors page's ranking table (overall band only), which a brand earns only by gaining more than the band. Every other figure on the Visibility, Competitors and Sources pages shows every change as measured, so read a small move there with the same caution. A change of a few points between two runs is usually noise.

Related#