Drift

Version 1 · 7 November 2026 Engines change. A new model, a new way of searching or a new answer format can move every brand’s numbers on the same day, and none of it is about you. We call that drift.

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How a drift day is found

Every day, for each engine, we compare your project’s answers with the days before. Either of two signs is enough:

• The order changed for most brands. At least half of the brands the engine named, both before and on the day, moved up or down the order of names at once.
• The number of brands per answer changed. An engine that starts naming more brands in each answer shifts everyone’s share of voice without anyone gaining ground.

One exception: if only the order changed, and the sites the engine cited changed by half or more on the same day, that is your market changing rather than the engine. It is not labelled drift. A few rules keep the label from firing on nothing:

• A day is judged only once there are at least five earlier days with answers to compare it with. A project’s second day is a second sample, not a change.
• A brand counts as moved only when its place in the order really changed, not when it shifted by a fraction.
• When there are only a few answers behind a day, it is still judged, but any label it gets is marked low severity.

Drift is found in your project’s answers only. No other customer’s answers are used.

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What a drift label does

• It is shown wherever the day is. Charts mark drift days, and a client report names them under its daily chart.
• It never removes an answer. Every answer from a drift day stays in every average. Dropping days would be choosing which evidence to keep.
• Alerts look past it. On a drift day, a fall in your visibility is judged net of your competitors: your change minus the middle change across the competitors you track, over the same questions. If you and your competitors fell together, no alert fires.
• Experiments subtract it. An experiment’s effect is your change minus your competitors’ middle change over the same questions and period, so an engine-wide move cancels out instead of being credited to your work. The experiment lists any drift days in its windows.

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Reading a drift day

A drift marker says the engine moved, so the change on that day is probably not about anything you did. Look at your figures next to your competitors’ for the same days. If you all moved together, your standing has not changed.

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