The Manning Index measures your decision-making presence: your ability to be found, understood, trusted, and chosen in the new decision-making environment, from the web to AI search engines.

It is a reproducible measurement protocol applied across five dimensions—Position, Conversion, Authority, Google, and AI Responses—using fifty predefined criteria.

Every business measured receives an overall score out of 100, a score for each of the five dimensions, and a data coverage level.

No. AI systems are observed, not judges.

Manning doesn’t ask an artificial intelligence to evaluate your business. Manning observes how search engines respond to real purchasing questions, then applies a standardized methodology. Under comparable conditions, the same protocol is applied to every business.

The Manning Report is a free first signal. It reveals whether there’s a gap between what models know about you when you’re named, and whom they recommend when you’re not. Two measurements, one page.

The Manning Index, at $1,500, is the full measurement: five dimensions, fifty criteria, a score out of 100, and a written analysis for each dimension. The Report isn’t a scaled-down version of the Index: the two answer different questions.

No. The assessment is conducted from the outside, based on what’s publicly observable: your pages as they appear, your business listing as it appears, third-party sources, and search engine responses.

That’s precisely what makes the assessment comparable across businesses — and what ensures it reflects what your buyer actually sees.

The Manning Index costs $1,500, plus tax. You’ll receive a signed and dated report including your overall score out of 100, scores for each of the five dimensions, the level of data coverage, a written interpretation of what each score means for your market, the observations behind the scores, and the actions that would improve each dimension.

A 30-minute debrief is booked as soon as you pay.

Manning measures decision-making visibility, of which search ranking is only one component. Google is one of the five dimensions measured — alongside Position, Conversion, Authority, and AI Answers.

In other words: ranking well is necessary, but no longer enough. A business can rank at the top of Google and never be recommended by a model asked who to call.

Yes. Purchase-related questions are asked in French, using the sources and context in which decisions are actually made in Quebec.

An assessment designed for another market would test different questions, sources, and language use—and produce a result unrelated to what your buyer here finds.

An Index describes a state at a given point in time. Its value is clearest at the second measurement: carried out using the same protocol and criteria, it shows exactly what has changed.

Most businesses measure once a year. Those undertaking a project track their progress monthly with Manning Monitoring, at $150 per month.

The Manning Index is designed, operated, and delivered by boutique-d, a strategic marketing and branding agency based at 398 Manning Street in Verdun, on the island of Montreal. The name of the index comes from this address.

Pierre Dessureault and Véronique Dupuis lead the agency. The protocol is written, dated, and versioned: every report indicates the version applied.