It's easy to publish a glossy case study with a number that goes up and to the right. It's more useful — and more honest — to run our own tool on ourselves and show you the real result, including the parts that aren't great. So here it is: RankingLocal.ai's own REAL Method score is 57.6 out of 100. That's a "mixed" score, not a victory lap. Here's how it breaks down, and why a young product scores exactly where you'd expect.
The four layers, no spin
The AI Recommendation Rate is four layers, each scored 0–25. Ours:
- Recognize — 17/25. Our strongest layer. Our schema is clean, our name and identity are consistent, and our
sameAslinks resolve. Engines know what RankingLocal.ai is. This is the layer we'd expect to lead on, because it's the most mechanical — it's the work we tell everyone to do first, so it would be embarrassing to fail it. - Evidence — 11/25. Our weakest, and honestly so. We're a young product. We don't have years of accumulated reviews, a long trail of press, or the dense third-party footprint an established brand has. This is the layer that takes the longest to build and can't be shortcut — exactly what we tell customers about their Evidence layer applies to us too.
- Answer — 16/25. Solid and improving. We have a real methodology page, growing documentation, and a blog (this one) that answers specific questions in quotable form. Every honest article we publish nudges this number. There are still category questions we haven't covered well, so there's clear headroom.
- Link — 13.6/25. Middling, with specific known issues. Some of our pages lean on client-side rendering that crawlers handle imperfectly, and our internal linking has gaps. These are fixable and on the list — which is the point of measuring.
Add them up: 17 + 11 + 16 + 13.6 = 57.6.
Why this is the right score for us
A 57.6 is not a failure; it's an accurate portrait of a real, early-stage business. And it illustrates something we say constantly: the layers move on different clocks. We could max out Recognize quickly because it's mechanical. We can't fast-forward Evidence, because evidence is earned over time across sources we don't control. A brand-new business with perfect schema and thin reviews scoring in the high 50s is the system working correctly — it's measuring reality, not rewarding effort.
If our tool had handed us a 95, that would be the real red flag. It would mean the score was vanity, not signal.
The most useful number a tool can give you is the unflattering-but-true one. A score you'd be embarrassed to show is worth more than a score designed to make you feel good.
What we're doing about each layer
Publishing the number is only worth something if it drives action. Our own plan maps to the 90-day sequence we'd give anyone:
- Link (13.6): the fastest wins, so it's first. Move key content out from behind client-side rendering, tighten internal links, confirm every citation crawler reaches every important page.
- Answer (16): ongoing. Keep publishing specific, honest, quotable content — like this post — that answers real questions in our category.
- Evidence (11): the slow compound. Earn genuine reviews and mentions over time. No shortcut, and we won't pretend there is one.
- Recognize (17): maintain. It's strong; the job is keeping it consistent as we grow.
Why we're telling you our weak number
Two reasons. First, trust: a tool that scores its own maker should be willing to show that score, warts and all. If we hid behind a perfect number, why would you believe the one it gives you? Second, demonstration: 57.6 is probably a more relatable starting point than a polished 90. Most businesses running the free check for the first time land somewhere in the 30s to 60s. Seeing that we're in the same range — and treating it as a to-do list, not a grade — is the entire mindset we want you to take.
The score isn't a judgment. It's a starting line with the lanes marked. Ours says: recognition's handled, content's coming along, fix the crawl issues, and earn evidence patiently. That's a plan, not a verdict.
See your own number
Run your domain through the free AI Visibility check and you'll get the same four-layer breakdown we just showed you for ourselves — no signup. Whatever it says, read it the way we read our 57.6: not as a grade, but as the shortest path to being recommended. If your number surprises you, hello@rankinglocal.ai reaches me directly — I'm genuinely curious what the tool tells people.