Search Everywhere Score (SES)
SES is the cross-channel index. Where AIS measures your standing in AI answers and your SEO metrics measure standing on Google, SES rolls them into one number you can put on a single board slide.
Search no longer happens in one place. Users move between Google, ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Maps, and YouTube within the same task. SES quantifies your total search presence across all of these surfaces.
What it combines
SES aggregates weighted performance from every search surface we track:
- Classic SEO — Google organic rank, click-through, impression share (from Google Search Console).
- AI Search — AIS (which itself rolls up VS, SOV, TMR across ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude).
- Local Search — Map Pack presence and ranking on geo-qualified prompts.
- SERP Features — PAA, Featured Snippets, Knowledge Panels where applicable.
Each channel contributes a normalised 0–100 sub-score, and SES is their weighted average.
When to use SES vs AIS
| Use SES when… | Use AIS when… |
|---|---|
| Reporting to leadership / clients across a full marketing programme. | Diagnosing AI-specific performance and tactics. |
| You want a single KPI that survives the SEO-to-AI transition. | You're optimising prompt coverage, entity recognition, or citations. |
| Comparing brands that invest unevenly across SEO vs AI. | Comparing brands purely on AI-answer presence. |
SES is the "boardroom" metric. AIS is the "operator" metric.
How to read it
| Range | Interpretation |
|---|---|
| 70–100 | Multi-channel leader. Strong on both SEO and AI surfaces. |
| 40–69 | Solid on one channel, gap on another — drill into AIS vs SEO sub-scores. |
| < 40 | Significant whitespace. Usually means AI surfaces are under-invested even if SEO is healthy. |
The most common pattern in 2026: brands with strong classic SEO scoring 60+ on the SEO side but 15–25 on AIS, dragging SES into the 40–50 range. SES is the metric that makes that gap visible.
Pairs with
- AIS — the AI half of SES.
- AI Brand Gap — the % of your SEO-ranked keywords that don't show up in AI. A direct diagnostic for why SES might be below AIS or SEO individually.