GlossaryUpdated 2026-09-21

Answer influence

Answer influence is evidence that a specific published change caused an AI answer to change. It requires a controlled experiment with one changed factor and a comparison; a before-and-after screenshot does not establish it.

Why it is the hardest step

Answers drift on their own: the same question gets different answers from the same model on different days. Without a baseline measured before the change and a single changed factor, a difference after the change could be noise, a model update or a change somewhere else on the web.

What does not count

A crawl after publishing, a citation after publishing, a better answer after publishing. Each is a sequence, not a cause. The rule is published at /evidence.

Where this was measured

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