Does AI recommend New Balance?
newbalance.com in running shoes and athletic footwear: how often Gemini, Google AI Overviews and ChatGPT name it next to Nike, its top competitor, which sites the answers cite, and whether AI crawlers can read the site.
27%
of AI answers name New Balance
Nike: 36%. Rank 5 of 48 brands tracked.
New Balance vs Nike, engine by engine
Named most by Gemini (29%), least by Google AI Overviews (23%). The grey tick is the typical (median) brand of the category.
Questions where Nike is named and New Balance is not
- “What do experts recommend as the best running shoe for a marathon personal best?”
- “Which running shoes are best for 5K and 10K races?”
32 more questions like these in this check. The snapshot finds them all for New Balance against up to 5 competitors, on 50 buyer questions asked 3 times in each engine, with the sites to get listed on and 5 fixes.
A PDF in 48 hours. What is in it
Email me this as a PDF, plus a re-check next month
The result as a PDF you can forward, then the same check again in 30 days so you see what moved.
Is New Balance named, and where?
- Yes. New Balance is named in 27% of the answers across Gemini, Google AI Overviews and ChatGPT.
- It ranks 5 of 48 brands we track in running shoes and athletic footwear.
- In list answers it shows up at position 2.5 on average in Gemini (1 = first).
The category baseline
From the AI Citation Index (48 brands tracked in running shoes and athletic footwear, Week 41).
1%
The typical brand
36%
The category leader
27%
New Balance, above typical
See the full running shoes index · New Balance's weekly trend
The sites the answers cite
The sites cited most in AI answers about running shoes and athletic footwear, all engines. Being listed, reviewed or discussed on these is the shortest path into the answers.
- youtube.com6.8% of citations
- runrepeat.com4.9% of citations
- reddit.com3.5% of citations
- nike.com1.2% of citations
- fleetfeet.com1.0% of citations
Can AI crawlers read newbalance.com?
Not fully. The fixes below are listed most important first. Checked Nov 3, 2026.
| Crawler | What it feeds | robots.txt |
|---|---|---|
| OAI-SearchBot | ChatGPT search, the pages it cites | Allowed |
| GPTBot | OpenAI model training only | Allowed |
| Googlebot | Google Search and Google AI Overviews | Allowed |
| Google-Extended | Gemini answers and training | Allowed |
| ClaudeBot | Claude | Allowed |
| Firewall | Akamai in front of the site | Blocks AI crawlers |
| Text without JavaScript | 1210 words in the raw homepage HTML | Readable |
The site has no robots.txt, so every crawler is allowed.
- Akamai blocks AI crawlersYour homepage answered our AI crawler request with a 403 or a challenge page, while a browser got the page. Allow verified AI crawlers in your firewall or bot protection settings.
What next
Get the full snapshot report
New Balance against up to 5 competitors on many more buyer questions: where you are missing, the sites to get listed on, and 5 fixes. A PDF in 48 hours.
What is in it · Need something custom? Ask us
Track it every week
Weekly tracking for New Balance is coming. Get notified when it opens.
Check another brand
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Numbers come straight from the answers we collected; we do not edit them for any brand. We publish counts and the sites cited, never the answers themselves. New Balance team? If something looks wrong, tell us.
We make every effort to find high-quality data sources, but this data comes from AI engine answers collected from the open web and we cannot guarantee its accuracy, completeness or reliability. Use it at your own risk.