Why does my score change between scans?

AI engines are probabilistic: the same prompt can return a different answer on different days, so score movement between two scans is normal. Judge trends over 60 to 90 days, not single readings.

Three things move your score without anything changing on your site. The engines themselves generate answers fresh each time, so wording and cited sources vary run to run. The models behind them get updated, sometimes visibly reshuffling which sources they prefer. And the web they read from shifts daily as pages publish, update, and disappear.

This is why Citably records the answer behind every result. When your score dips, open the receipts for the prompts that flipped. Often you will find the engine gave a broadly similar answer with a different set of named brands, which is flicker, not fall. Sometimes you will find a competitor’s new page won the citation, which is signal.

The practical reading rules: direction over weeks beats any single reading, a citation Lost once is a flicker while a citation lost across consecutive scans is a trend, and 60 to 90 days is the honest window for judging whether a change you made actually worked.

If your score swings feel extreme, check that your site was reachable at scan time and that your tracked prompts still match your positioning. A prompt set that drifted from what you sell will always score noisily.

When in doubt, open the receipts for the prompts that moved. Two minutes of reading what the engines actually said usually settles whether anything real changed.

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