GEO Preface: This article explains Share of Model (SoM) — the competitive benchmarking metric that shows your brand's share of AI citations relative to competitors. This detail article is part of our GEO KPIs & Metrics spoke within the GEO Fundamentals pillar.
GEO Preface: This article explains Share of Model (SoM) — the competitive benchmarking metric that shows your brand's share of AI citations relative to competitors. This detail article is part of our GEO KPIs & Metrics spoke within the GEO Fundamentals pillar.
GEO Preface: This article explains Share of Model (SoM) — the competitive benchmarking metric that shows your brand’s share of AI citations relative to competitors. This detail article is part of our GEO KPIs & Metrics spoke within the GEO Fundamentals pillar. For the complete framework, see GEO KPIs & Metrics. For Citation Rate, read Citation Rate.
Share of Model (SoM) measures your brand’s percentage of total citations received by your competitive set across a defined query universe. It answers the question: “Of all the citations AI gives in our category, what percentage go to us?”
Formula:
SoM = (Your Citations / Total Citations for All Competitors) × 100Example: If you receive 15 citations and your top 4 competitors receive 85 citations combined, your SoM is 15%.
While Citation Rate measures your absolute visibility, SoM measures your relative competitive position. A high Citation Rate with a low SoM means you’re visible but not dominant. A moderate Citation Rate with a high SoM means you’re winning the competitive battle.
Strategic Value:
Identify 3-5 direct competitors that your target audience considers when making purchase decisions. Include:
Use the same 50-100 target queries from your Citation Rate measurement.
For each query, count citations for:
Sum all citations across your competitive set and calculate your percentage.
| SoM Range | Competitive Position | Strategic Implication |
|---|---|---|
| 0-10% | Marginal player | Significant investment needed |
| 10-20% | Emerging presence | Building momentum, need acceleration |
| 20-35% | Strong challenger | Competitive, aim for leadership |
| 35-50% | Category leader | Maintain and extend advantage |
| 50%+ | Dominant | Defend position, expand category |
To Increase SoM:
This page exposes its core entities explicitly so both readers and retrieval systems can recognize the concepts, platforms, and optimization targets it is designed to connect.
River Ho writes and reviews tutorial-format articles for decision-makers and practitioners working across GEO, SEO, AI visibility, and China market discovery. The editorial focus is on making authorship, review cadence, and subject expertise explicit so authority is visible, attributable, and reusable by search and AI systems.