Long Distance Moving Carriers: AI Visibility Market Discovery Index

Benchmark Summary

International Van Lines is the current coverage leader, with 56.1% valid recommendation coverage in October 2026, up from 46.0% in July 2026. The gap to the next brand, American Van Lines at 45.6% in October 2026, stands at 10.5 percentage points, and that gap widened in each month of the series.

International Van Lines also recorded the largest coverage increase in the series, rising 10.1 percentage points between July 2026 and October 2026, and adding 11.4 percentage points from September 2026 to October 2026 alone. The largest decline belongs to JK Moving Services, which fell from 44.7% valid recommendation coverage in July 2026 to 33.0% in October 2026, a drop of 11.7 percentage points, declining in each of the three months since July 2026.

October 2026 was a mixed month across the series: International Van Lines posted the only move beyond normal month-to-month variation, rising 11.4 points from September 2026. Colonial Van Lines and JK Moving Services remain significant decliners versus the July 2026 baseline, even though their October movement alone stayed within normal month-to-month variation. American Van Lines, Safeway Moving, and Wheaton World Wide Moving also registered no significant change in October.

The benchmark worked from 800 prompt-surface observations in July 2026 and 790 in October 2026, producing 542 qualified observations in October 2026 after qualification.

Current Benchmark at a Glance

Qualified surface breadth counts the canonical AI/search surface families with at least one qualified observation: ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, Perplexity, AI Overviews, and AI Mode. All six families were represented in each month. August 2026 and September 2026 sat between the baseline and current months, with 532 and 561 qualified observations respectively.

For the strategic interpretation of this benchmark, read CiteWorks Studio's analysis of How AI Search Is Recommending Long Distance Moving Carriers

Research Scope and Qualification

The public benchmark is narrower than the raw collection universe by design. Brand-level percentages use the qualified observations as the public denominator, not the raw collection.

For full methodology, see AI Visibility Market Discovery Methodology.

Current Brand Standings

Questions This Section Answers

• Which long distance moving carriers lead AI recommendations in October 2026?
• How do presence rate, valid recommendation coverage, and rank-one rate differ across the tracked brands?
• Why does Wheaton World Wide Moving show zero valid recommendation coverage?

International Van Lines leads on every metric in the table. Wheaton World Wide Moving's five qualifying mentions produced no valid recommendations.

How to Read the Standings

• Presence rate: share of qualified observations in which the brand is mentioned at all.
• Valid recommendation coverage: share of qualified observations in which the brand receives a valid recommendation.
• Top-three rate: share of qualified observations in which the brand appears among the top three recommended options.
• Rank-one rate: share of qualified observations in which the brand is the first recommendation.
• Net sentiment: positive mentions minus negative mentions divided by total mentions.

For formulas and denominator rules, see AI Visibility Market Discovery Metric Definitions.

Recommendation Coverage Movement

Questions This Section Answers

• How much recommendation coverage did International Van Lines gain since July 2026, and which carriers lost ground?
• Which brands moved beyond normal month-to-month variation between September and October 2026?
• How did Safeway Moving's recommendation position change relative to the category leader and to American Van Lines?

Largest Increase: International Van Lines

International Van Lines rose from 46.0% valid recommendation coverage in July 2026 to 56.1% in October 2026, an increase of 10.1 percentage points, and added 11.4 percentage points from September 2026 to October 2026 alone. That prior-to-current move was also beyond normal month-to-month variation, making it the single largest monthly move recorded in this series to date.

The brand's presence rate rose from 51.3% in July 2026 to 59.0% in October 2026, up 7.7 percentage points. Its top-three rate climbed from 26.5% to 41.3% over the same period, up 14.8 percentage points, and its rank-one rate moved from 14.2% to 18.3%, up 4.1 percentage points. Ninety-nine of the 542 qualified observations placed International Van Lines first.

Largest Decline: JK Moving Services

JK Moving Services fell from 44.7% valid recommendation coverage in July 2026 to 33.0% in October 2026, a decline of 11.7 percentage points, moving down in each of the three months since July 2026. The brand held 35.3% coverage in August 2026 and 33.2% in September 2026 before reaching 33.0% in October 2026.

Presence fell far faster than recommendation placement: presence rate declined 12.0 percentage points while top-three rate held broadly flat and rank-one rate rose.

Significant Decliner: Colonial Van Lines

Colonial Van Lines moved from 39.2% valid recommendation coverage in July 2026 to 33.2% in October 2026, down 6.0 percentage points, a decline beyond normal month-to-month variation. The brand reported 31.8% coverage in August 2026 and 29.2% in September 2026 before recovering 4.0 percentage points into October 2026, a prior-to-current move within normal month-to-month variation.

Presence declined from 41.1% in July 2026 to 35.2% in October 2026. Rank-one rate rose from 4.5% to 7.8%.

Category Leader: International Van Lines

International Van Lines leads the category with 56.1% valid recommendation coverage in October 2026, up from 46.0% in July 2026. The brand holds the highest presence rate at 59.0%, the highest top-three rate at 41.3%, and the highest rank-one rate at 18.3% in the current month. The gap between International Van Lines and second-place American Van Lines widened from 4.4 percentage points in July 2026 to 10.5 percentage points in October 2026, and has widened in every month of the series.

Stable Brands

American Van Lines and Wheaton World Wide Moving registered no significant change between July 2026 and October 2026.

American Van Lines moved from 50.4% coverage in July 2026 to 45.6% in October 2026, a change within normal month-to-month variation, though its top-three rate rose from 18.6% to 26.9%, up 8.3 percentage points. The brand reported 41.3% coverage in August 2026 and 40.5% in September 2026 before recovering 5.1 percentage points into October 2026.

Wheaton World Wide Moving recorded 0.6% coverage in July 2026 and 0.0% in October 2026, with five qualifying mentions producing no valid recommendations in the current month.

Company Focus: Safeway Moving

Safeway Moving held valid recommendation coverage effectively flat, moving from 19.9% in July 2026 to 20.8% in October 2026, a change within normal month-to-month variation. Presence rate stood at 22.7% in October 2026, with top-three rate rising from 8.5% to 15.7% (up 7.2 points) and rank-one rate rising from 3.2% to 5.3%. Net sentiment held at 0.97, in line with the rest of the category. Twenty-nine of the 542 qualified observations in October 2026 placed Safeway Moving first.

American Van Lines records 45.6% valid recommendation coverage, while Safeway Moving stands at 20.8%, a gap of 24.8 percentage points. On placement, International Van Lines records an 18.3% rank-one rate, compared with 5.3% for Safeway Moving. The more important issue is what these gaps mean for Safeway Moving's recommendation position: Safeway Moving is mentioned in AI responses at a meaningfully lower rate than its named direct competitors, and even where it is mentioned, it converts into a first-choice recommendation far less often than the category leader. This is a material gap on the metric that most directly determines whether an AI answer sends a customer to Safeway Moving rather than to a competitor, and it has not closed over the three months measured since the baseline.

Highest-priority diagnostic: Which specific prompt clusters, citation sources, or content gaps are causing AI systems to recommend American Van Lines and International Van Lines more often than Safeway Moving in head-to-head long-distance moving queries, and what would it take to close that recommendation gap?

Recommendation Placement Snapshot

Questions This Section Answers

• How much can coverage hide differences in first-position placement?
• Which carrier holds the highest top-three and rank-one rates, and how large is its placement advantage?

Coverage alone does not show how prominently a brand is recommended. International Van Lines led both coverage and placement, while American Van Lines held the second-highest coverage but the lowest rank-one rate among the leading brands shown here.

Close coverage can still hide very different first-position rates. International Van Lines and American Van Lines were separated by 10.5 percentage points in coverage in October 2026, and by 15.9 percentage points in rank-one rate.

Buyer-Intent Distribution

Questions This Section Answers

• What buyer-intent classes are represented in the current qualified observations?
• Which buyer-intent classes are not yet covered by this public series?

All qualified observations in both months fell into the brand recommendation class.

The current public series measures brand recommendation discovery specifically and does not yet contain qualified observations in the pricing and value or multi-brand comparison classes.

Historical Measurement Record

Questions This Section Answers

• How has the coverage leader changed across the monthly measurements?
• What were the largest coverage movements in each measurement period since July 2026?

This is an evergreen benchmark URL. New measurements are added to the same report.

The coverage lead changed hands once, in August 2026, and has not changed since.

Top 10 Cited Domains

Questions This Section Answers

• Which domains are cited most often across AI platform responses for long distance moving carriers?
• Which platforms cite move.org and consumeraffairs.com?
• How concentrated are citations across the 720 unique domains, and do any tracked carrier domains appear in the top 10?

Across all AI platform responses in this measurement period, 6,140 citations were observed pointing to 720 unique domains.

Citations are broadly distributed rather than concentrated: the top 10 domains account for 41.9% of all citations across 720 unique domains. No tracked brand's own domain appears in the top 10. Moving-specific resource and comparison sites dominate the list, with move.org, movebuddha.com, and moving.com joined by consumer review and general interest publishers including consumeraffairs.com, forbes.com, thisoldhouse.com, and reddit.com, while google.com ranks first largely through AI Mode and AI Overviews surfaces.

Evidence and Source Layer

The benchmark is built from prompt-level observations that retain the query, AI/search surface, answer, brand outcome, recommendation placement, sentiment, and where exposed, citations or attributable evidence sources. Source presence is evidence about the information environment. It is not automatically proof that the source caused the recommendation.

Scope Boundaries

This public benchmark does not measure:

• Market share or sales attribution
• Every possible AI response to a given query
• Organic search engine ranking positions
• Social media mention volume
• Private or sponsored channel performance
• Causality from a metric movement alone

About This Benchmark

The LLM Authority Index AI Visibility Market Discovery Index measures how often tracked brands appear in AI-generated answers across major AI and search surfaces, how often they are recommended, and how prominently they are placed. The benchmark is built from a defined prompt set and applies consistent qualification rules across all brands and surfaces.

Research links:

• AI Visibility Market Discovery Methodology
• AI Visibility Market Discovery Metric Definitions
• AI Visibility Market Discovery Research Standards
• Modeled AI Visibility Authority Value

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