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Glossary entry cohort-rank

Cohort rank

Your rank among the set of pages an AI engine considered for citation (usually the top 50 retrieved, not the full web).

Filed under
Metrics

Definition

Cohort rank is your page's position within the cohort of candidates an AI engine retrieved for a given query before deciding which 3–5 to cite. Engines typically retrieve 25–50 candidates then rerank. Knowing your cohort rank (vs your final cite rank) tells you whether the failure is retrieval (not in cohort) or selection (in cohort but not cited).

Example

Cohort: top 50 pages for 'best CRM'. You're in cohort at position 23. Final citation set: top 5. You're not cited. Diagnosis: cohort entry succeeded; ranking within cohort failed.

How to optimize

Diagnose: not in cohort = retrieval problem (semantic alignment, schema, llms.txt). In cohort but not cited = selection problem (BLUF, authority, freshness). Different fixes apply.

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