Recommendation Rate (Top 5) is the percentage of buyer questions where your brand appears in the Top 5 recommendations and includes a clickable link to your website.
To understand why this matters, it helps to step back. If you’re wondering what is a recommender system, this is the simplified version: it’s a system that selects and ranks options for a user based on signals, context, and predicted fit. AI answer engines do the same — but in natural language.
Definition
Recommendation Rate measures shortlist wins that can send traffic to your site. It counts only Top 5 appearances that include clickable links.
Under the hood, modern AI answers resemble recommendation system algorithms: they weigh candidate options, trust signals, evidence density, and scenario fit — then output a ranked shortlist.
What counts (Dabudai standard)
Here’s how to measure AI recommendation rate in a way that stays consistent across runs and engines:
Your brand appears in a Top 5 recommendation list.
The Top 5 appearance includes a clickable link to your website (any page).
Mentions without clickable links do not count.
It’s also important to separate linked mentions vs unlinked mentions in AI: a linked mention indicates a retrievable source, while an unlinked mention is harder to validate and less likely to drive traffic.
If links are not displayed, the run may be Not Observable for linked outcomes.
Calculation
Recommendation Rate (Top 5) = (Buyer questions where you are in Top 5 with a link) / (Total buyer questions measured) × 100
Note: based on aggregated runs.
Quick visual
Counts: in Top 5 + clickable linkDoes not countLinked-only + Top 5 shortlist format
Worked example (1 buyer question)
Buyer question: “Best tools for AI visibility tracking”
If your brand appears at ranks 1–5 with a clickable link → counts.
If your brand is mentioned but not in the Top 5 list → does not count.
In addition to shortlist placement, we also track AI citation ranking position — meaning where your linked source appears within the list of cited references inside the answer.
Related metrics (quick table)
Metric | What it answers | How it differs |
Average Rank | Where you place when you appear | Placement quality (lower is better) |
SOV | Weighted share across brands | Uses position and repeats |
AI Visibility Score | How often you get any link | Overall linked presence |
FAQ (short)
Is Top 5 fixed for this metric?
Yes. Recommendation Rate uses Top 5 as the shortlist format.
Do we count mentions without links?
No. This metric is linked-only.
