How the Presence score works.
One number, 0 to 100, for how present a creator is online. Every input is something anyone can check from outside: no logins, no private data, nothing a creator reports about themselves.
Three groups
Social is where the audience follows you. Search is where new people find you, in Google and in AI answers, and where trips now get planned. Site is what you own and nobody can switch off.
| Group | Signal | What we count | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|---|
| Social | YouTube | Subscribers, likes and comments per view on the last 10 videos, uploads in 90 days | YouTube Data API |
| Social | Followers, likes and comments on the last 12 posts, posts in 90 days | Public profile, logged out | |
| Social | TikTok | Followers, likes, comments and shares per view on the last 10 videos, posts in 90 days | Public profile, logged out |
| Search | AI answers | How often answers to travel questions name you; whether “who is” answers link your site | Gemini with Google Search |
| Site | Website | Speed on a phone, a secure address, links to your socials, an about page | Google PageSpeed, our crawler |
| Site | Blog | Posts in the last 90 days, total posts | RSS feed, sitemap |
The math
Reach goes on a log scale with fixed ends. 1,000 followers scores 0 and 10 million scores 100. Each ten times more adds 25 points. The ends never move, so your score moves only when you do.
Inside each app, followers count 60, likes and comments 30, and posting in the last 90 days 10. Likes and comments are measured against creators of the same size, because big accounts always get fewer per follower. Matching the typical rate scores 50; twice it scores 100.
Social counts your best apps most: the best 50%, the second 25%, the third 15%, the fourth 10%. Seven thin accounts never beat three strong ones.
Search is, for now, AI answers alone. Being named counts 70, and full marks means being named in one answer in four. A "who is" answer linking your own site counts 30. We count how often you're named, never your position, because AI answers change from run to run.
Site is Website 60 and Blog 40. Website is half speed on a phone and half the basics. Blog is posting rhythm (one post every two weeks is full marks) and depth (10 posts scores 0, 1,000 posts scores 100). A coming-soon page counts as no site.
The three groups multiply. This is a weighted geometric mean, the method the UN's Human Development Index switched to in 2010.
Presence = Social0.5 × Search0.3 × Site0.2
Each group counts as at least 5, so one empty group can't zero the score. A creator at 90, 20 and 10 scores 37; one at 50, 50 and 50 scores 50. A weighted average would put the first ahead. Multiplying doesn't let a gap hide behind reach.
The weights, and the tests they pass
Social 50, Search 30, Site 20. Social is where the audience is today: half the score, never all of it. A good site also lifts search, so it counts there too; 20 here stops us counting it twice. These are a starting point, published, and tested.
- Stability. Moving each group's weight 10 points up and down, the top 10 kept at least 9 of the same names every time. The creators decide the ranking, not the weights.
- Not just followers. Our ranking's rank correlation with a ranking by follower count alone is 0.44. Of 1, it would mean we had rebuilt a follower count with extra steps.
- Sense. Three people who know travel creators review the top 30 before each full release. Every surprise needs a reason we can point to in the data.
What this preview leaves out
This first ranking uses free and near-free sources only, and scores will move when the rest come in. Each arrives as a new method version, dated below.
- Search engines. How much of page one for your name is yours, a knowledge panel, travel searches where you rank.
- More AI engines. ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews and Perplexity, read from the real apps.
- More apps. X, Threads, LinkedIn, Snapchat, and Pinterest or Facebook where a category needs them.
- Link authority. One input to Website, never the whole signal.
Who we score: creators who live in the US or call themselves American on their own pages, with travel as their main subject. Handles come from each creator's own pages. A missing app means we could not confirm a handle, not that none exists. YouTube data is refreshed or dropped within 30 days, as YouTube's terms require; we keep the monthly score.
Version history
- v0.1-preview, 9 October 2026. First public ranking: 36 US travel creators, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, own site and blog, and AI answers from one engine.