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The method

Every number
can be taken apart.

These are the rules Cairn actually applies, in the order a piece of coverage meets them. They are deterministic: the same coverage produces the same answer next month, and a result you disagree with can be argued line by line rather than accepted.

Nothing here is a summary of an algorithm we would rather not describe. If a rule is not on this page, Cairn does not apply it.

01.What counts as coverage

Independent editorial media, and it has to be shown.

A brand name appears in many places that are not press coverage. Cairn sorts them by a stated reason, never by a score, and the reason stays printed next to the result.

Ruled out, with the reason recorded

  • A reference work, such as an encyclopaedia or a dictionary entry
  • Owned or non editorial: the brand's own site, its blog, its press room
  • A user generated platform, where anyone may post
  • A directory or listing, which lists rather than reports
  • An app store or marketplace listing
  • A hub page or an index page, which carries headlines rather than a story
  • An exact duplicate of a piece already collected
  • A piece that mentions the brand without being about it

What happens to them

They stay visible

An excluded piece is not deleted. It stays in the workspace with its category printed beside it, and it is listed in the report. A count you cannot see the other side of is a count you cannot check.

Cairn does not guess

When a publication is not recognised, the piece is held as needs review and a person decides. Cairn does not quietly count it, and it does not quietly drop it. The two silent options are the two that cannot be defended later.

02.One story, many URLs

Four results can be one story.

A wire piece picked up by nine sites is nine pieces of coverage and one story. Counting ten is wrong. Counting one is also wrong. Cairn reports both figures and keeps the link between them.

The same page is the same page

URLs are normalised before any comparison: scheme and host lowercased, tracking parameters stripped, fragment dropped, trailing slash removed. Two addresses that differ only by a campaign tag are one address.

One signal never merges two stories

A decision that suppresses a piece as a duplicate needs at least two corroborating signals. A headline of fewer than four content words cannot drive it on its own, because short headlines collide by accident.

The original is the earliest evidenced

Among pieces telling the same story, the one with the earlier evidenced publication date is the original. The others are recorded as pickups of it, and each names the publication it reproduces.

An unknown date cannot win

A piece with no evidenced date sorts last. It can never become the original by default, which is the failure mode of every system that treats a missing value as a small one.

Time windows are part of the rule

Two URLs for one story on one site appear within hours of each other. A pickup is allowed seven days. Beyond that window, two pieces stay two pieces, whatever they look like.

A pickup is coverage

Cairn does not delete syndication. Removing it would understate what actually ran. It is counted, marked as a pickup, and attached to the piece it reproduces, so you can report four pieces and one story and defend both.

03.Dates

A date carries its own evidence.

The publication date decides which piece is the original and whether a piece falls in your reporting period. It is the figure most worth getting honestly.

Where it came from is stored

Every date is kept with its source and how precise it is. A date read from the page is not the same fact as a date inferred, and Cairn does not flatten the difference.

Unknown stays unknown

A piece with no stated date is recorded as unknown. It is never given the day Cairn found it. The date of discovery is a fact about Cairn, not about the article.

The period is stated

Every report names the window it covers. A piece outside the window is outside the count, and the boundary is printed rather than assumed.

04.Share of voice

A ratio of counted coverage, and nothing else.

Share of voice is the one figure on the page that is computed rather than observed. It is graded derived, and it may rest on counted inputs only.

How it is obtained

The denominator is the counted coverage of your brand and the competitors you named, over the stated period. The numerator is your share of it. No reach, no impressions, no audience, no weighting by publication.

A small sample says so

Below ten counted pieces the figure is labelled a low sample. Below five, a very low one. A percentage computed on three articles is arithmetically correct and practically meaningless, and the label is there so nobody presents it as more.

A refusal is not a zero

When a period has not been fully evaluated, Cairn says so instead of printing a percentage. Reporting an unevaluated period as 0% would be a false statement, and it is the one figure this product exists not to publish.

What the figure carries with it

  • The period, with its start and end
  • The population: your brand and the named competitors
  • The number of counted pieces behind it
  • The sample warning, when one applies
  • Its grade, derived, and the counted figures underneath

Every one of those is reachable from the number itself, in the interface and in the report. That is what "why this number?" opens.

05.Decisions

Nothing is erased.

Where a rule cannot decide, a person does. That judgement becomes part of the record rather than a memory, which is the difference between a number you present and a number you can defend.

A decision carries a name and a time

Every validation records who made it and when. A report can therefore answer "who counted this, and on what day" without anyone reconstructing it.

Changing your mind writes a new decision

Decisions are append only. Undoing one is a new decision restoring the previous state. The earlier decision stays in the record, visible, with its own author and date.

An open question stays open

A piece Cairn will not classify on its own is held for review. It is neither counted nor discarded while it waits, and the report says how many are waiting.

The rules are versioned

Each stored judgement carries the version of the ruleset that produced it. A decision taken six months ago can be found, and read against the rules that were in force at the time rather than today's.

06.Evidence grades

Four levels. The height is the evidence.

Every figure Cairn produces carries how it was obtained, in the interface and in the report. A derived figure may take counted inputs and nothing else, which is why the hollow pile can only rest on the solid one.

Counted

Observed one by one in independent editorial coverage.

Nothing rests under it

Derived

Computed from counted evidence, such as a share of voice.

Counted inputs only

Estimated

An explicit estimate. Labelled everywhere it appears, and never quietly promoted.

Labelled everywhere

Declared

One stone, placed by a person who signed for it. A judgement, and it says so.

Carries a name and a date

07.What the method never does

The short list is the honest one.

  • ×It never estimates reach. Neither reach nor impressions can be shown, so neither is printed.
  • ×It never computes an advertising value. The Barcelona Principles proscribe it and the profession followed.
  • ×It never deletes silently. An excluded piece stays visible with its reason.
  • ×It never invents a date. Unknown stays unknown.
  • ×It never scores a resemblance. Duplicate judgements come from stated rules, not from a similarity model you cannot argue with.
  • ×It never folds ten judgements into one. A single score per piece hides all ten, and hides the weakest best.
  • ×It never counts paid media as coverage. No advertorials, no sponsored posts, no broadcast or print clipping.
  • ×It never keeps journalists on file. No contact database, no emails, no personal profiles.

If Cairn cannot defend a number, Cairn does not print it.

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