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The Category Leaderboard
Category leaders are both discoverable in Google and
AI search - as well as leading demand in their category
Select your category
Select your
category:
Explore who's winning category leadership positions
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(US-based data)
How to read the metrics
Scores run from 1 to 100. The closer to 1, the stronger your position.
Low scores need defending. High scores is where your opportunity lies.
What does category leadership mean?
Category leadership isn't the brand with the biggest budget. It's not even the brand with the largest market share.
To own a category, you have to be two things: found and wanted.
Discoverable - showing up when people search, whether that's Google or AI. And...
In demand - the brand people are actually asking/searching for by name when it comes to that category.
We've partnered with Ahrefs to measure exactly that.
For every category, we pull the most visible brand in Google, the most visible brand in AI search and LLMs, and the most in-demand brand. Those three signals combine into a single Leadership Score.
Google Discovery Data (pos score)
Brand & category demand SV
AI visibility/ share of voice
Can't see your brand? It's time to talk to a Rise strategist and find out why
Why these three metrics define category leadership - and not just one
Every brand is ranked using a leadership score
We talk to brands every week who have strong awareness but disappear the moment someone starts searching.
Big TV spend. Millions of impressions. But no presence in the moments that actually drive decisions.
That's not category leadership. That's brand recognition without commercial impact.
The data shows it clearly: discoverability drives demand, and demand drives discoverability. Google and AI reward brands that are talked about, recommended, and earning mentions across the web. They surface what the internet already endorses.
So visibility alone isn't enough. If your non-brand SEO is strong but nobody's searching for you by name - if your PR, social and creative aren't building that pull - you won't win the category.
You need both. Discovery and demand. Together, they're what makes a category leader.
Category leaders:
Frequently Asked Questions
A first of its kind tool from Rise at Seven, built in partnership with Ahrefs, that ranks brands by category leadership across multiple sectors. It combines search visibility, brand demand and AI visibility into a single score.
The lower the score, the stronger the position.
Use the "Can't see your category?" option on the page to submit a request. New categories can be added, so if your market is missing let us know. It’s a very easy task for us
Three signals, weighted into one score: Position (how visible your brand is in traditional search), Brand and Category Search Volume (how often people search for your brand alongside the category), and AI Visibility (how present your brand is across AI search and LLMs). Scores run from 1 to 100 closer to 1 is stronger.
We take the top 100 generic keywords in each category and look at how many position 1-10 rankings a brand has in comparison to competitors. You can't be considered a category leader if you aren't at least in top 10 positions
Market share shows how much of the market you own commercially. Category leadership shows whether you are being found and wanted. A brand can have huge market share, a massive TV budget and strong general awareness, but still lose visibility when customers start searching across Google, AI tools and other platforms. That's the gap the leaderboard is built to show.
Discovery is whether your brand shows up when people search across Google, AI search and LLMs. Demand is whether people are actively searching for your brand by name in relation to the category. The strongest category leaders have both.
Google visibility shows how well your brand appears in traditional search results. AI visibility shows how often your brand is cited or recommended by tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google's AI Overviews. Brands that only optimise for traditional search risk missing part of the new discovery journey.
The leaderboard is not based on revenue, media spend or market share. A smaller brand can outrank a larger one if it is more visible in search, more present in AI results and has stronger brand and category demand. It is not about being big. It is about being found and wanted in the moments that matter.
Brand awareness and category leadership are not the same thing. You might be well known overall but still be losing ground in specific categories where competitors are more visible or more strongly associated with the search behaviour that matters. The leaderboard shows where you are leading, where you are slipping, and where competitors are quietly overtaking you.
The leaderboard measures organic visibility, AI visibility and brand demand not paid spend. High paid spend with a weak score can be a warning sign that investment is driving short-term reach but not converting into lasting search demand or category association.
Share of Search looks at how much of the category search demand your brand is winning. If competitors are owning the majority of category searches, you are probably not leading the category regardless of how much awareness your brand has overall.
A falling score usually points to competitors gaining visibility, your own organic or AI visibility dropping, or brand demand weakening in that category. The next step is to diagnose which part of the score is pulling you down. A Rise at Seven strategist can help identify whether the issue is search visibility, AI visibility, brand demand, or a combination of all three.
Yes. If a competitor is outranking you across search, AI visibility or brand demand, that gives you a clear, data-backed reason to invest. It helps turn "we need more brand budget" into a concrete business case: here is where we are losing category leadership, here is who is overtaking us, and here is the opportunity to win it back.
It's live, powered by ahrefs. We push the positions to update daily, with the biggest movers and fallers highlighted across categories. That makes it easier to spot shifts in category leadership as they happen rather than waiting for monthly or quarterly reporting.
Powered by Ahrefs, one of the most trusted sources in the industry using US-based data. It combines search visibility, brand and category search volume, and AI visibility signals to create the final score.
It likely means your brand does not currently have enough visibility, demand or category association within that space. That is usually worth looking into, as it could mean competitors are being found where you are not.
This is the first iteration, soon we will be launching a US category leaderboard following that of an EU one.
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Request data for your brand
If your category isn't here or your brand isn't where it should be that's the opportunity.
If you're not visible everywhere, you're not winning anywhere.