Blog | RivoNotes on AI search visibility: how assistants pick the brands they recommend, and what moves the answer.https://www.rivo.lienWhat changes when your customers stop searchinghttps://www.rivo.li/blog/what-ai-search-changeshttps://www.rivo.li/blog/what-ai-search-changesSearch rewarded the page that ranked. AI assistants reward the brand the model can describe: a different mechanism, and a different thing to measure.Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMTAI searchVisibilityRivoYour brand is described by pages you do not ownhttps://www.rivo.li/blog/surfaces-you-do-not-ownhttps://www.rivo.li/blog/surfaces-you-do-not-ownAssistants lean on retailers, reviews, forums and video for the sources behind a recommendation. Your own site is a minority of the evidence they use.Tue, 01 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMTVisibilityCitationsRivoShould you let AI crawlers in?https://www.rivo.li/blog/should-you-let-ai-crawlers-inhttps://www.rivo.li/blog/should-you-let-ai-crawlers-inTraining bots and search bots are different tokens with different consequences, and most robots.txt files block the wrong one. What each control actually does.Thu, 20 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMTCrawlersAI searchRivoStructured data, llms.txt and the rest of the plumbinghttps://www.rivo.li/blog/structured-data-and-llms-txthttps://www.rivo.li/blog/structured-data-and-llms-txtWhich technical measures platforms actually say they use, which they say they ignore, and the one new control that genuinely changes whether you appear in AI answers.Thu, 06 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMTStructured dataAI searchRivoWriting for retrieval, not for rankinghttps://www.rivo.li/blog/writing-for-retrievalhttps://www.rivo.li/blog/writing-for-retrievalWhat the research on position bias and retrieval actually supports about structure, and where the evidence runs out and vendor advice takes over.Thu, 23 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTContentResearchRivoWhat actually moves an AI answerhttps://www.rivo.li/blog/what-moves-the-answerhttps://www.rivo.li/blog/what-moves-the-answerThe best evidence we have on changing how a generative engine describes you comes from one 2024 paper. Its findings are useful, specific, and smaller than the headlines.Thu, 09 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTAI searchResearchRivoThree numbers worth tracking before any othershttps://www.rivo.li/blog/three-numbers-before-any-othershttps://www.rivo.li/blog/three-numbers-before-any-othersPresence, perception and displacement. What each one answers, how to compute it defensibly, and why a single AI visibility score usually hides the useful part.Tue, 30 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMTMeasurementVisibilityRivoWhy testing ten prompts tells you nothinghttps://www.rivo.li/blog/sampling-the-prompt-spacehttps://www.rivo.li/blog/sampling-the-prompt-spaceSame question, same settings, different answer. The research on variance says diversify phrasings, languages and engines rather than repeating one prompt.Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMTMeasurementResearchRivoWhere AI answers get their sourceshttps://www.rivo.li/blog/where-ai-answers-get-their-sourceshttps://www.rivo.li/blog/where-ai-answers-get-their-sourcesAssistants cite about four sources where a search page lists ten, and roughly a third of the domains they cite never appear in the matching organic results.Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTAI searchCitationsRivoHow an assistant decides which brand to namehttps://www.rivo.li/blog/how-assistants-choose-brandshttps://www.rivo.li/blog/how-assistants-choose-brandsTwo different mechanisms decide whether your brand appears in an AI answer: what the model retrieved, and what it already believed. They need different work.Fri, 08 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTAI searchResearchRivo