> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.mentionlab.io/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Competitors & Brands

> Configure the brands and competitors you want to track across AI platforms

Every brand named in an AI response becomes an **entity** in your project automatically. Which of
those entities count as *yours* and which count as *competitors* is something you decide — that
flag drives the competitor views and the entity-scope filter. This guide covers both halves.

## Entities

An entity is a brand, product or company MentionLab has seen in an AI response. Entities are created
automatically as your analyses run; you never have to add them by hand. Manage them from
**Project settings → Entities**.

### Flags

Each entity carries four independent flags, set with the **Flags** toggles in the entity sheet
(or in bulk from the entities table):

| Flag            | Meaning                                                                   |
| --------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Owned**       | A brand you own. Included by the **Entity scope** filter.                 |
| **Primary**     | The project's main brand — the one every "your brand" metric refers to.   |
| **Competitor**  | A brand you're tracking against. Included by the **Entity scope** filter. |
| **Blacklisted** | Excluded from analysis entirely. Use it for false matches.                |

<Warning>
  Auto-detection creates entities, but it does not decide which are competitors — you set the
  **Competitor** flag yourself. You can do it during project creation, from the entity sheet, in
  bulk, or by right-clicking a row in the entities table and choosing **Set as competitor**.
</Warning>

### Aliases

A brand rarely appears under one exact spelling. **Aliases** group the variants so their mentions
land on one entity. For "MentionLab" you might add:

* `Mention Lab`
* `mentionlab.io`
* `ML Analytics`

Add them under **Aliases** in the entity sheet; changes save when you update the entity.

### Blacklisting

Short or generic brand names get matched against unrelated text. Rather than blocking individual
terms, MentionLab blacklists the whole entity: toggle **Blacklisted** and it drops out of every
metric, chart and table. Its history is preserved, so un-blacklisting brings the data back.

You can also blacklist straight from the analysis views — right-click a row in the entities table
and choose **Add to blacklist**.

### Domains

The **Domains** field associates an entity with the sites it owns — "domains associated with this
entity, used to categorise cited sources". It is a list, not a single URL, and it accepts up to
**100 domains** per entity. This is what lets the Sources analysis attribute a citation to the
brand behind it.

### Groups and divisions

Entities can be organised two levels deep with the **Group / Division** field:

* A **group** is the top level (e.g. "Direct", "Enterprise", "Emerging").
* A **division** nests inside a group — useful for sub-brands or regional arms of one parent.

The **Group entities** filter can then aggregate your analysis at either level. See
[Filters & Comparisons](/guides/filters-and-comparisons#group-entities).

### Merge and unmerge

When AI platforms refer to one brand under names MentionLab detected as separate entities, **merge**
them to combine their mention data. If a merge turns out to be wrong, **unmerge** splits it back
apart.

### Importing and exporting

* **Import** — **Project settings → Entities → Import entities** takes a CSV for bulk creation.
* **Export** — entity exports live on **Project settings → Export data**, as the **Entities**
  export type ("all entities with aliases and groups").

<Note>
  The Entities page is import-only. There is no download button on it — use Export data.
</Note>

***

## The Competitors page

**Analysis → Competitors** puts your brand head-to-head with everything else in the project:

| Card                               | What it shows                                                      |
| ---------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| **Visibility Score Comparisons**   | Mention rate over time, one line per competitor entity             |
| **Competitor Mention Positions**   | Average position when each entity is mentioned                     |
| **Avg Mentions Per Result**        | How prominently each entity is featured when it does get mentioned |
| **Tag Performance Summary**        | Your ranking and the gap to the leader on each tag                 |
| **Entity Mentions Share of Voice** | How mentions are split across all tracked entities                 |
| **All Entity Mentions**            | The full entity table, with per-row actions                        |
| **Sentiment**                      | How AI platforms describe each entity                              |

<Tip>
  Most cards have an export button in their top-right corner that downloads the underlying data.
</Tip>

### Aggregating by group

Set the **Group entities** filter to **Groups** (or **Divisions**) in the Filters popover to collapse
individual brands into their group. Useful once you're tracking more competitors than fit on a chart.

***

## "View as" mode

Right-click a row in the **Entities** table on the Overview — or **All Entity Mentions** on the
Competitors page — and choose **View as \<brand>**. Every metric is then recalculated from that
entity's point of view, so you can read the product as if you were monitoring a competitor.

Right-click again and choose **Reset to original** to switch back.

<Info>
  "View as" is a global perspective switch, not an Analysis-only one. It scopes the Analysis pages
  (Overview, Queries, Tags, Platforms, Sources, Competitors) *and* the Sentiments stat cards and
  trend chart, plus the Shopping visibility timeseries. Deliberately unscoped comparison tables —
  Sentiment by Entity, All Products, All Brands — keep listing every entity.
</Info>

<Note>
  Flag toggles are hidden from the right-click menu while **Group entities** is set to Divisions or
  Groups, because a grouped row represents a container rather than a single entity.
</Note>