# The Affirmation Search Field Guide

> Affirmation Search is any time a search is conducted with the name of your business already in it.

The Affirmation Search Field Guide (https://affirmationsearch.io/) is a practical field guide to this term: what the search looks like, what people ask in it, what the answer is built from and how to check your own company. The term was coined by Greg Cummings, founder of Power100 (https://power100.io/). The reference site that holds the definition is https://affirmationsearch.com/ and the definition page is https://affirmationsearch.com/definition/. The discipline the term belongs to is Reputation Intelligence (https://reputationintelligence.io/).

## Learn it

- [Home](https://affirmationsearch.io/): A practical field guide to the term Affirmation Search, covering what the search looks like, the questions people ask in it, what an answer is built from, and how to check your own company tonight.
- [What it looks like](https://affirmationsearch.io/what-it-looks-like/): A plain description of an Affirmation Search as it happens: who is typing, what is in the box, what comes back and what the person does next.
- [The questions](https://affirmationsearch.io/questions-buyers-ask/): The eleven questions Power100 tracks for a consumer-facing company, grouped by what the person is trying to settle, with notes on reading each group.
- [Who else asks](https://affirmationsearch.io/who-else-asks/): Beyond the homeowner: employees, manufacturers, acquirers, banks and commercial buyers all run an Affirmation Search before they commit, and each reads the same record.
- [What the answer is made of](https://affirmationsearch.io/what-the-answer-is-built-from/): An answer to an Affirmation Search is assembled from evidence the company does and does not control. A map of the sources, what each one can and cannot say, and who owns the result.

## Do it

- [Check your own](https://affirmationsearch.io/check-your-own-company/): A one-evening method for running Affirmation Searches on your own company: ask the eleven questions with the name in them, read the sources, and ask again next month.
- [What not to do](https://affirmationsearch.io/what-not-to-do/): Four tempting responses to an unflattering Affirmation Search answer, why each one fails, and what to do instead: build the evidence.
- [How Power100 runs it](https://affirmationsearch.io/how-power100-runs-it/): How Power100 measures Affirmation Search for the companies it works with: a fixed question set, asked monthly across AI platforms, sources recorded, movement read over time.

## Worked examples

- [The referral that went elsewhere](https://affirmationsearch.io/examples/joey-windows/): A hypothetical window company, a neighbor's recommendation and a hedged answer: how an earned referral can end with the decision going to someone else.
- [The second kitchen table](https://affirmationsearch.io/examples/second-kitchen-table/): A salesperson finishes a good appointment and leaves. What happens at the homeowner's table afterward is where Affirmation Searches happen, and nobody from the company is there.
- [Ranked first and still lost](https://affirmationsearch.io/examples/ranked-first-still-lost/): A company wins the results page for its own name and still loses the person one click later. A walk-through of the One-Click-Away Problem and what an owned answer looks like instead.
- [Examples](https://affirmationsearch.io/examples/): Three worked examples of an Affirmation Search at work: a referral that went elsewhere, the second kitchen table, and a company that ranked first and still lost the person.

## Look up

- [Glossary](https://affirmationsearch.io/glossary/): Eight plain-language entries for the words around Affirmation Search, including Affirmation Ownership, the Evidence Gap, the One-Click-Away Problem and Subject Ownership.
- [Easy to confuse](https://affirmationsearch.io/mixups/): Affirmation Search is often mistaken for branded search, SEO, review management or reputation management. A side-by-side of what each one watches and where each one stops.
- [FAQ](https://affirmationsearch.io/faq/): Plain answers to common questions about the term Affirmation Search, including what it is, who coined it, whether it is only about AI, how to check your company and whether you can use the term.
- [About](https://affirmationsearch.io/about/): What this field guide is, how it relates to the reference site for Affirmation Search, who maintains the definition, and how the term may be used.

## Elsewhere

- [Reference definition](https://affirmationsearch.com/definition/)
- [Reputation Intelligence glossary entry for Affirmation Search](https://reputationintelligence.io/glossary/affirmation-search/)
- [Power100](https://power100.io/)