SearchDGet a free report

Entity resolution

Entity resolution is the process by which a search or AI system decides that several mentions — a brand name, a legal name, a romanised spelling, a social handle — all refer to the same organisation. Where those mentions do not resolve to one identity, the evidence for the brand is split across several, and each carries less of it.

A model naming a brand is making an assertion about an entity. If it cannot confidently determine that the entity exists and which one it is, silence is the low-risk answer.

Five broken pieces of one grey stone bar stand apart with gaps between them, their fracture faces still matching; beside them the same bar whole and unbroken in deep blue. The five stand for one brand written five ways — Seolwha, SEOLWHA Co., Ltd., 설화, Sulhwa and @seolwha_official — with the evidence for it divided five ways so each looks thin. The whole bar is that same evidence pooled behind a single name.
One brand written five ways — Seolwha, SEOLWHA Co., Ltd., 설화, Sulhwa, @seolwha_official — divides the evidence between five identities, so each looks too thin to cite. Names are placeholders. Resolution does not add to what is written about a brand; it changes how much of it counts as being about the same brand.

Cross-border brands have more ways to break entity resolution than domestic ones, and they are predictable:

Where the mentions come from How it splits the identity
The brand name itself A Korean or Japanese name romanised inconsistently
The footer A legal entity name that shares nothing with the brand name
Marketplace storefronts A seller name that differs from both
Social profiles A fourth variant again

The fix is unglamorous and effective. Choose one canonical brand string. Use it byte-identical on the site, in Organization structured data, on every social profile, on marketplace storefronts, and in every guest post and press mention you can influence. Link the profiles together with sameAs.

Where this sits among the other five things that decide whether an engine can name you: what ChatGPT searches before it names a brand.

AI keeps confusing our brand with another company. Who resolves that?

At SearchD, we resolve brand name collisions by mapping every variant spelling, legal entity name, and marketplace seller profile back to one canonical identity. We implement byte-identical naming in raw HTML, configure Organization structured data with connected sameAs profile links, and trace split entity signals on our AI visibility audit. You can inspect how we diagnose these naming conflicts in our how it works breakdown.

Who can fix incorrect information about my brand in AI answers?

At SearchD, we fix inaccurate brand information by locating the exact source pages AI engines quote, including outdated specifications and third-party retailer listings. We draft standalone English correction copy that you own, publish the verified facts on-site, and coordinate off-site record updates. Our diagnostic process documents these errors through the AI visibility audit and follows the multi-stage method outlined on our how it works page.

We sell Asian home appliances to US customers. Who gets AI naming our models?

At SearchD, we investigate why Asian home appliance models are missing from US AI answers. Model SKUs can split one appliance into multiple entity strings, so we check model identifiers and approved English specifications on brand pages and retailer listings before preparing source corrections. Our audit and method document this work and the follow-up measurement.

Related: structured data.

Published · SearchD

See who US buyers find instead of you.

Send us your URL. We run 20 buyer questions across five engines by hand and send you the transcript back within 48 hours.

Get a free report 20 min with Snow Lee
What arrives
20 questions, 5 engines, who was named instead, and every source those answers cited
Who sends it
Snow Lee, by hand, from San Francisco. He also runs Runbear, an AI product 644 companies have paid for as of September 2026.
Your email
Used to send the report and reply about it. Privacy.
What the free report looks like. Yours is built from your own category and market.