AI Visibility Rankings · Security

Secure web gateways: AI search visibility ranking (2026)

By monitoraeo Last updated July 06, 2026 Refreshed every 30 days

How AI search engines rank secure web gateways by visibility and citations. 20 brands measured monthly across Google AI Mode: which brands the AI names in answers, which domains it cites as sources, and how the leaders compare. Secure web gateway products used to filter traffic, block malicious content, enforce acceptable-use policies, and protect users browsing the web from any network or device. Composite score: 70% visibility (% of AI answers naming the brand) + 30% citation rate (% citing the brand's domain). Full methodology →

Avg visibility across category

Avg citation rate

20/20

Brands successfully audited

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When AI engines like ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity answer questions about secure web gateways, Palo Alto Networks comes up most often, appearing in 12.5% of all AI visibility and earning citations in 37.5% of tracked responses. Cloudflare One and Fortinet round out the top three. The remaining 17 brands on this page compete for the visibility that is left, with most appearing only occasionally across AI engines.

The sources AI engines cite most when discussing this category include g2.com and gartner.com (third-party review and analyst aggregators), miniorange.com (a vendor with strong topical content), and the vendor sites paloaltonetworks.com and checkpoint.com. When aggregator and analyst sites dominate citations, it signals that AI engines are weighting peer reviews, analyst placements, and comparison content heavily, which shapes which brand names surface in buyer-facing answers.

If you are choosing from this list, pay close attention to how each brand performs on g2 and Gartner, since those are the sources AI engines actually pull from when forming recommendations. A brand with strong recent reviews and clear topical coverage of secure web gateway use cases will appear more reliably in AI answers, which increasingly reflects where real buyer research starts. Thin or outdated third-party validation is a signal worth investigating before committing.

At a glance

Category leader Palo Alto Networks 12% visibility · named in 1 of 8 AI answers

Most cited brand Palo Alto Networks 38% citation rate · the AI's most-trusted source brand in secure web gateways

Top cited domain miniorange.com Referenced by AI across the secure web gateways query set — the highest-leverage PR target in this category

Visibility spread 12pp Gap between top and bottom of the ranking · 16 brands at 0% (invisible to the AI)

What we observed in this category

Palo Alto Networks leads the secure web gateways category with a composite score of 20.0, ahead of Cloudflare One and Fortinet who are tied at 16.2. The gap between first and second place is modest in composite terms, but Palo Alto Networks achieves the highest citation rate in the category at 37.5%, a figure it shares only with Zscaler Internet Access. With the category average visibility sitting at just 2.5%, any brand clearing 12.5% visibility holds a structurally significant advantage over the field.

The most striking divergence between visibility and citation belongs to Zscaler Internet Access, which carries 0.0% visibility yet a 37.5% citation rate, matching the category leader on citations despite never appearing in named brand lists. Skyhigh Security presents the inverse pattern: 12.5% visibility but 0.0% citations, meaning it is named but not trusted enough to be sourced. Check Point similarly holds 25.0% citation with zero visibility, confirming that AI Mode distinguishes between brands it references and brands it surfaces as category leaders.

Google AI Mode is the top engine for every brand in this dataset without exception, indicating the audit is concentrated on a single engine. Among cited sources, third-party review and comparison sites dominate, with miniorange.com, g2.com, and gartner.com all appearing alongside brand-owned domains like paloaltonetworks.com and checkpoint.com. The presence of reddit.com and smaller domains such as nordlayer.com and controld.com suggests AI Mode is drawing on community and niche comparison content rather than anchoring purely on authoritative analyst or vendor sources.

Movers & shakers since last refresh

Biggest visibility risers

Cloudflare One 0% → 12% · rank #9 → #2
+12pp
Fortinet 0% → 12% · rank #16 → #3
+12pp
Skyhigh Security 0% → 12% · rank #11 → #5
+12pp

Biggest visibility fallers

Netskope 12% → 0% · rank #2 → #9
-12pp

The ranking

#	Brand	Visibility	Citation	Top engine
1	Palo Alto Networks paloaltonetworks.com	12%	38%	Google AI Mode
Palo Alto Networks holds the top composite score of 20.0, with a 37.5% citation rate that is five times the 8.8% category average, and its own domain appears in the top cited sources list.
2	Cloudflare One cloudflare.com	12%	25%	Google AI Mode
Cloudflare One rose from rank 9 to rank 2 this period, gaining 12.5 percentage points in both visibility and citation, making it the joint second-highest cited brand at 25.0%.
3	Fortinet fortinet.com	12%	25%	Google AI Mode
Fortinet jumped from rank 16 to rank 3, recording the largest rank change of any brand at plus 13 positions, with citation climbing 25.0 points to reach 25.0%.
4	Zscaler Internet Access zscaler.com	0%	38%	Google AI Mode
Zscaler Internet Access achieves a 37.5% citation rate despite 0.0% visibility, meaning AI Mode references it as a source but does not surface it as a named category leader.
5	Skyhigh Security skyhighsecurity.com	12%	0%	Google AI Mode
Skyhigh Security records 12.5% visibility but 0.0% citation, placing it among the visible brands while generating no sourced references, the sharpest named-versus-trusted gap in the top five.
6	Check Point checkpoint.com	0%	25%	Google AI Mode
7	Cisco Umbrella cisco.com	0%	12%	Google AI Mode
8	Barracuda barracuda.com	0%	12%	Google AI Mode
9	Netskope netskope.com	0%	0%	Google AI Mode
10	Menlo Security menlosecurity.com	0%	0%	Google AI Mode
11	Broadcom Symantec broadcom.com	0%	0%	Google AI Mode
12	Cato Networks catonetworks.com	0%	0%	Google AI Mode
13	Forcepoint forcepoint.com	0%	0%	Google AI Mode
14	iboss iboss.com	0%	0%	Google AI Mode
15	Lookout lookout.com	0%	0%	Google AI Mode
16	Versa Networks versa-networks.com	0%	0%	Google AI Mode
17	Sophos sophos.com	0%	0%	Google AI Mode
18	Trend Micro trendmicro.com	0%	0%	Google AI Mode
19	Trellix trellix.com	0%	0%	Google AI Mode
20	OpenText Webroot opentext.com	0%	0%	Google AI Mode

Sources AI engines trust in this category

Across the 8 buyer-intent queries we ran on secure web gateways, these are the domains Google AI Mode cited most often. If you're not on this list — or if your competitors are — that's a concrete PR / linkbuilding target.

miniorange.comg2.compaloaltonetworks.comgartner.comcheckpoint.comreddit.comnordlayer.comcontrold.com

How to read this ranking

Four things worth knowing before you act on the numbers above. These are the same definitions across every industry page — for category-specific observations, see the What we observed section above (where available) and the per-brand insights inline in the ranking.

Visibility = being named

A brand's visibility % is the share of AI answers that mention it by name in the response prose. This is who AI engines actively recommend to the buyer. More on visibility →

Citation rate = being trusted

Citation rate is the share of AI answers that include the brand's domain as a clickable source link. This is what the AI treats as authoritative evidence, different from being named. More on citation rate →

Top engine differs by brand

The "top engine" column shows which AI surface each brand performs best on. Big gaps between a brand's score across engines usually points to specific content or schema gaps. How AI engines pick sources →

Rankings move month to month

AI engines re-crawl and re-rank on shorter cycles than classical search. We re-audit every brand on this list at least every 30 days and refresh this page automatically. How AI search ranking works →

Get your own secure web gateways brand audited

The brands above were curated from public market-leader lists. Want the same measurement against your own brand — including the queries you appear on, which competitors get named instead, and a prioritised fix list? Run a free preview.

Audit your secure web gateways brand → Browse all rankings Methodology →

Frequently asked about secure web gateways AI visibility

Who leads AI visibility in secure web gateways?

Palo Alto Networks leads with a composite score of 20.0 and a citation rate of 37.5%, placing it ahead of Cloudflare One and Fortinet who are both tied at 16.2.

What sources does AI cite most for secure web gateways research?

The most frequently cited sources are miniorange.com, g2.com, paloaltonetworks.com, gartner.com, checkpoint.com, reddit.com, nordlayer.com, and controld.com, combining third-party review sites, analyst platforms, vendor domains, and community content.

Which brand has the biggest gap between visibility and citation in this category?

Zscaler Internet Access has a 37.5% citation rate with 0.0% visibility, meaning AI Mode references it heavily as a source while never surfacing it as a named category leader.

Which brands have seen the biggest recent shifts in AI visibility?

Fortinet rose 13 rank positions from 16 to 3, and Cloudflare One rose 7 positions from 9 to 2, while Netskope fell 7 positions from rank 2 to rank 9 and lost all visibility and citation.

How concentrated is AI visibility in this category?

Visibility is highly concentrated: the category average is just 2.5%, and only four brands (Palo Alto Networks, Cloudflare One, Fortinet, and Skyhigh Security) record any visibility at all, each at exactly 12.5%.

Which engine dominates AI visibility measurement for secure web gateways?

Google AI Mode is the top engine for every brand in the dataset, making it the sole engine driving category visibility and citation signals in this audit.