Questions
What is an Affirmation Search?
Affirmation Search is any time a search is conducted with the name of your business already in it. The person already knows who you are. They are deciding what to believe.
Who coined the term?
Greg Cummings, founder of Power100. Power100 maintains the definition at the reference site, and this guide is a separate site that covers the practical side.
Is it only about AI?
No. A search engine, an AI platform or a review site can all carry the name. What made the moment urgent is AI: the reply is now a written explanation put together from evidence, and the person can keep asking.
Is it the same as branded search?
They overlap by query, since every Affirmation Search contains the name. Branded search counts visits from the company's own data. An Affirmation Search reads the answer itself, including on platforms that send no visit.
What do people actually ask?
Power100 tracks eleven questions for a consumer-facing company, from whether to hire the company to the name followed by the word reviews. They are on the questions page, word for word.
How do I see what mine says?
Put your company's name into the eleven questions and ask each one wherever your customers go, noting the sources behind every reply. Repeat the exercise next month. The check page walks through it.
Can I make the answer nicer?
Only by changing the evidence behind it. A better reply needs improved proof behind it, and that proof comes from a company that has earned it.
Does one answer on one night prove anything?
No. Platforms disagree, information changes and personalization shapes what one person sees. The pattern across questions, platforms and months is the reading.
Can I use the term?
Yes, freely. Quote the definition exactly as the reference site words it, and link to that site's definition page.
Still looking
The glossary has the vocabulary, and the reference site has the formal treatment.