Average position

Average position is the plain-rank companion to Visibility: when an engine mentions you, how early in the answer does your name come up?

How it's calculated

In each run where you appear, your position is the 1-based order of your first mention (1 if you're named first, 2 if second, and so on). Average position is the mean of that value over the runs where you appear:

avg_position = mean(first-mention order) over runs where you are present

• Lower is better — position 1 is the top of the answer.
• Runs where you don't appear are not averaged in (they would have no position). This is why average position pairs with presence rate: position tells you how good your appearances are, presence tells you how often they happen.

Null handling

Average position is null (em-dash) until you have appeared in at least one run. There is no rank to average when you were never mentioned — MentionFlow shows the gap rather than inventing a worst-case number.

Why it matters

• It isolates placement from frequency. You can appear in many answers but always last (high presence, poor position), or rarely but always first (low presence, strong position) — each calls for different work.
• Improving position is usually about being the clearest, most quotable answer to the prompt; improving presence is about being mentioned at all.

Related

• Visibility — position and presence combined into one weighted score.
• Presence rate — how often you appear.
• API: the avg_position field on /api/v1/overview, /api/v1/prompts, and /api/v1/competitors.