The search that already knows your name
The name is already in it.
AffirmationSearch
Affirmation Search is any time a search is conducted with the name of your business already in it.
It is the moment someone who already knows you decides what to believe about you.
Why it matters now
People have always checked a name before they trusted it. They asked a neighbor, called a reference, read a review. What changed is where the checking happens and what comes back. A person can now ask a question about your company in plain English and get back an answer that reads like an explanation rather than a list of links, and then keep asking.
That answer is assembled from whatever evidence can be found about you. Your salesperson is not in the room when it is read, and neither is anyone else from your company.
A referral earns us the right to sit at the table with them.
Greg Cummings
The referral still brings the name. It no longer closes the sale on its own, because the person who received it searches the name before they call, and again after the appointment, and sometimes after they have signed.
The eleven questions
These are the questions Power100 tracks for a company that serves consumers, word for word, with the company's name where XYZ is. What each asker is really deciding has a page of its own.
Should I hire XYZ?
Is XYZ worth the money?
Is XYZ a good company?
Is XYZ a good company to work for?
Why should I choose XYZ?
Does XYZ deliver on their promise/warranty/service?
Are the products XYZ installs/uses good products?
Can I trust XYZ?
Should I have bought from XYZ?
Is XYZ the best choice for me?
XYZ reviews
Where it sits next to awareness
Marketing is not the problem and not the rival. Advertising, direct mail, referrals, a truck in a driveway: all of it creates awareness, and awareness creates the search. The person now knows your name. What they do not yet know is whether to believe you.
That is the handoff this term names. Awareness creates the search. Evidence decides the answer. A company can pay for the first half and still lose the second, because the second half is decided by a record it may never have looked at.
What it is not
It is not SEO, which competes for the searches of people who do not know your name yet. It is closest to what marketers call branded search, and the difference matters. It is not review management, because a review profile is one source among the many an answer can cite. And it is not reputation management, which starts after something goes wrong. An Affirmation Search happens every day, whether anything has gone wrong or not.
Where the term comes from
Greg Cummings, founder of Power100, coined the term. It is the headline of his AI findability workshop, it has a chapter in his book, and it is how Power100 measures what the outside world is told about a company. The definition page has the full account. The discipline the term belongs to is Reputation Intelligence, and the related term for how much of that search a company controls is Affirmation Ownership.
Questions people ask
What is an Affirmation Search?
Affirmation Search is any time a search is conducted with the name of your business already in it. It is the moment someone who already knows you decides what to believe about you.
Who coined the term Affirmation Search?
Greg Cummings, founder of Power100. He uses it in his workshops and client work and gives it a chapter in his book, Reputation Intelligence. Power100 maintains the definition, and this site is its reference.
Is an Affirmation Search the same as a branded search?
They overlap by query: any search with your company's name in it is a branded search to a marketer. The difference is what each term is for. Branded search counts the traffic a name brings in. Affirmation Search reads the answer the person gets back, including on AI platforms that send no visit and leave no record in your analytics.
What questions do people ask in an Affirmation Search?
Power100 tracks eleven for a consumer-facing company, word for word, with the company's name in each: Should I hire XYZ? Is XYZ worth the money? Is XYZ a good company? Is XYZ a good company to work for? Why should I choose XYZ? Does XYZ deliver on their promise/warranty/service? Are the products XYZ installs/uses good products? Can I trust XYZ? Should I have bought from XYZ? Is XYZ the best choice for me? XYZ reviews.
How do I see what an Affirmation Search says about my company?
Ask the eleven questions yourself, with your company's name in them, on the platforms your customers use, and read the sources each answer cites, not only the answer. Power100 runs the same questions monthly for the companies it works with and records how each answer and its sources move.
Your company
Every one of the eleven questions can be asked about your company tonight, by anyone who already knows the name. The answer is already written. The only question is whether you have read it.
See what an Affirmation Search says about your company