# Aliases and name recognition

Source: https://support.seoai.de/docs/aliases-and-recognition/

> Why aliases exist and how they make AI answers recognize your brand.

AI answers rarely use your brand exactly the way you spell it. They abbreviate, translate, or use the domain name instead. Aliases make sure every variant still counts as you.

## Where you configure them

Every brand has an "Also known as" field. Add every variant a customer or an AI might realistically use: abbreviations, common misspellings, the bare domain, historical names, and localized spellings.

## What aliases affect

1. Mention counting: an answer naming an alias counts as a mention of your brand
2. Visibility Score: alias appearances count toward visibility
3. Name-confusion detection: the Gaps area looks for cited domains that share words with your name or your aliases, or are one typo away, to catch companies that get mistaken for you
4. Mention rank: which of the brands named in an answer is you

## What happens to past answers

Mentions are found when an answer is analyzed, so a new alias counts for mentions in new runs only. Mention rank is different: SEOAI stores every brand an answer named, so after you save new aliases it checks past answers again within about two minutes and your rank history follows. This costs nothing and needs no new analysis.

## Choosing good aliases

1. Include the obvious ones first: abbreviation, domain without ending, common misspelling
2. Check early answers for variants you missed: every answer shows exactly how the AI phrased your name
3. Avoid overly short or generic aliases that could match unrelated text; recognition works best with distinctive variants

If a competitor with a similar name keeps appearing in your answers, that is entity confusion, and the Gaps area has a dedicated workflow for it.

**[Brands](https://support.seoai.de/docs/brands)**

**[Name confusion](https://support.seoai.de/docs/name-confusion)**