Small business=heldSince September 2026: 0% → 0%, ±0 points. Inside the 13-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.
0%from 0% in September 2026
Inside the floor by 13 pointsRank 34 → 47 of 52
1 category · RankedFirst Advantage
92Judge labels
11First choices
15Negative labels
14 / 14Models named it
1Category
October 2026 Edition. Every number here is derived from the raw labels under vendor table v2026-10.7, every buyer segment counted.
Best standing
20% in Background screening for enterprise buyers
Rank 15 of 83 in the mid-market standingaccepted challenger
0 of 14 models made it the first choice on the direct prompt; 12% of its 26 labels there were negative.
What the models named instead of First Advantage →By buyer segmentStrongest at enterprise.
Small business54 of 59
0%18 labels
criticized challenger
Mid-market15 of 83
0%26 labels
accepted challenger
Enterprise3 of 71
20%48 labels
accepted challenger
In background screening · each standing computed within its segment · bars are 0 to 100 · the accent bar is the product's own best reading
Standing by category
Every category where a model named First Advantage for a mid-market B2B company. Share is first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts; rank is within every product named in that category.
| Category | Function | Share | Rank | Negative rate | Labels | Quadrant | Since September 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Background screening | Talent acquisition | 0% | 15 of 83 | 12% | 26 | accepted challenger | =heldSince September 2026: 0% → 0%, ±0 points. Inside the 13-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked. |
Movement
Since September 2026, First Advantage held within the floor in its one category: no change cleared 13 points.
Best category · Background screening · by segment
Mid-market=heldSince September 2026: 0% → 0%, ±0 points. Inside the 13-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.
0%from 0% in September 2026
Inside the floor by 13 pointsRank 11 → 15 of 70
Enterprise▼−20Since September 2026: 38% → 17%, −20 points. Past the 13-point floor: movement. Read over the models both editions asked.
17%from 38% in September 2026
Cleared the floor by 7 pointsRank 1 → 3 of 62
All categories · Mid-market
| Category | September 2026 | Now | Change | Reading | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Background screening | 0% | 0% | =heldSince September 2026: 0% → 0%, ±0 points. Inside the 13-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked. | Within noise | Rank 11 → 15 of 83 |
Shares here are read over the models both editions asked, so they can differ by a point or two from the standing above, which counts every model in this edition.
The floor is 13 points of share, measured: how far the models move a leader on their own when the same questions are asked twice with nothing changed. A larger change is movement; a smaller one is noise, and both are shown. Movement is read over the twelve models both editions asked; GPT-6 Luna, Muse Glimmer 30B joined this edition and are in the standing but not yet in the comparison. How the floor is measured · The editions
By model
How each model treated First Advantage across every prompt where it was named for a mid-market B2B company. Fourteen models, six prompts per category.ShowHide
By model
How each model treated First Advantage across every prompt where it was named for a mid-market B2B company. Fourteen models, six prompts per category.
ShowHide| Model | First choice | Alternative | Mention | Negative | Labels |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Haiku 4.5 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 |
| GPT-5.4 mini | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Gemini 3.5 Flash | 0 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 3 |
| Perplexity Sonar | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Grok 4.1 Fast | 0 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 4 |
| Mistral Small | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| DeepSeek V4 Flash | 0 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 3 |
| Llama 4 Maverick | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Qwen 3.7 Flash | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Kimi K2 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 |
| GLM 4.7 FlashX | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| MiniMax M2.5 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| GPT-6 Luna | 0 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 3 |
| Muse Glimmer 30B | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
By framing
Which of the six questions produced the naming. By model says how often; this says asked what. The first-choice count on the right carries the marks of the models that produced it.
FramingLabels by classFirst choices
Direct15 labels5
Paraphrase18 labels4
Comparative30 labels11not counted in share
Budget-constrained10 labels2
Scale-constrained5 labelsNone
Negative14 labels2not counted in share
First choiceAlternativeMentionNegative92 labels in all, every segment counted; 11 of the 24 first choices count toward share, since the comparative and negative framings do not. The bar is one segment per label class, to scale within the framing.
What the models said for it
Verbatim evidence the judge attached to positive labels.
“Many reputable providers like First Advantage, HireRight, and others generally have better track records.” MiniMax M2.5 · Background screening · negative prompt · first choice
“"Global provider of background screening, identity, and workforce trust solutions with a modern candidate experience."” Muse Glimmer 30B · Background screening · comparative prompt · alternative
“You get enterprise-level security and database depth with none of the enterprise-level contract commitments.” Gemini 3.5 Flash · Background screening · budget prompt · alternative
“First Advantage offers the global reach and technology stack to support mid-sized organizations scaling up” Muse Glimmer 30B · Background screening · paraphrase prompt · alternative
And against it
Verbatim evidence attached to negative labels. A warning on a product with few labels is a warning; on a product with many, it is one voice among them.
“they are heavily geared toward multinational Fortune 500 enterprises... slow, bureaucratic, and lack personalized attention.” Gemini 3.5 Flash · Background screening · direct prompt · soft negative
“rely on automated systems to match records, and this process can result in inaccurate or misleading reports” Claude Haiku 4.5 · Background screening · negative prompt · soft negative
“Large corps | Custom | 3.4 | Varies | Less ideal” Grok 4.1 Fast · Background screening · paraphrase prompt · soft negative
Named alongside
The products named in the same answers as First Advantage, over the 92 answers that named it. Took the first choice instead counts the answers where the other product was the first choice and First Advantage was named but was not.ShowHide
Named alongside
The products named in the same answers as First Advantage, over the 92 answers that named it. Took the first choice instead counts the answers where the other product was the first choice and First Advantage was named but was not.
ShowHideProductSame answerTook the first choice insteadHead to head
A head-to-head page exists where both products are among a category's top eight. The other rows are the same fact without a page behind them, so they link to the product instead.
What carried it into the answer
The sites and pages cited by the answers that named First Advantage. A fact about retrieval, not a lever on the model.
Citations exist only for the models that return a source list, five of the fourteen in this edition, so these counts come from 91 of the 92 answers that named First Advantage and are not a share of its labels.
Domains cited
checkr.com69
pin.com46
fadv.comYour site43
selectsoftwarereviews.com39
goodhire.com31
bib.com30
peoplemanagingpeople.com30
mitratech.com29
techradar.com23
iprospectcheck.com21
318 of the 361 domain citations in answers naming First Advantage came from somebody else's page.
Pages cited
Pages are listed as the models cited them.
Search and answers
fadv.com ranks 6 on Google for the category's searches. In the answers, First Advantage takes 0% of first choices and Checkr takes 31%.ShowHide
Search and answers
fadv.com ranks 6 on Google for the category's searches. In the answers, First Advantage takes 0% of first choices and Checkr takes 31%.
ShowHideIn search
Google, US estimatesPosition for “background check provider”
6
Position for “background check providers”
–
not in the top ten
- Searches for its name, Google
- 74,000 a month (“first advantage”)
- AI search demand for its name, est.
- 1,820 a month
- Organic visits to its site
- about 128,337 a month
- Searches its site ranks for
- 7,618 · 755 in the top three
- Sites linking to it
- 3,713
- Paid Google search
- 1 searches its ads show for, about 6 clicks and $1,781 a month (estimate)
In answers
This editionShare of first choices
0%
rank 15 of 83 in background screening
Segment leader
31%
Checkr
- First choices
- 11 across its categories
- Named in
- 92 answers
- Its own site cited
- in 91 of the answers that named it
Search figures are US estimates from DataForSEO, read September 28, 2026; AI search demand is its modeled, directional estimate, not a count of queries to any assistant. The answers are this edition's. Two measurements side by side: neither is read as the cause of the other.
What it publishes
ShowHide
What it publishes
ShowHideAddresses on fadv.com
2,937
subdomains included
Content
2,122
counted in the table below
Documentation
8
Product · Integration
69 · 34
| Kind | Pages | Last 90 days | 2025-11 to 2026-10 | Latest | Categories named |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Blog | 1,411 | 8 | 2026-09-30 | Background screening | |
| News or press | 480 | 5 | 2026-09-03 | Background screening | |
| Webinar or virtual event | 97 | 10 | 2026-09-30 | Background screening | |
| Case study | 41 | 9 | 2026-09-24 | Background screening, Applicant tracking syste | |
| Conference or event | 36 | 0 | 2026-02-19 | Background screening | |
| Report or ebook | 27 | 2 | 2026-09-29 | Background screening, Applicant tracking syste | |
| Template or tool | 22 | 4 | 2026-09-29 | Background screening | |
| Podcast or video | 6 | 3 | 2026-09-29 | ||
| Comparison | 1 | undated | |||
| Glossary or explainer | 1 | 0 | 2026-04-15 |
Most recent
- 2026-09-30Healthcare hiring impostors webinar recap webinar or virtual event
- 2026-09-30Gig worker background check considerations blog
- 2026-09-29Trust and safety operations at smaller scale blog
- 2026-09-29The scale down guide what to keep deepen redesign report or ebook
- 2026-09-29Lessons learned from gig platforms podcast or video
- 2026-09-29How to run a background check an employers guide blog
How it is countedHide how it is counted
Every page fadv.com exposes, subdomains included. Kind is read from the address and title. The last 90 days, the latest date and the twelve months count pages by when they were published, from the site's feeds, a date in the address, or the page's own publication date, read from up to a hundred of its most recently changed pages; a page that says only when it last changed is counted in its kind but not in when, so the recent counts are a floor, and a kind none of whose pages gives a publication date reads undated. An event counts as online when its address or title says so (webinar, on demand, virtual or online summit); a conference, summit, trade show, expo or roadshow that does not say so is counted as a conference or event, which on a vendor's site is mostly in person. Read October 5, 2026.
Names read as First Advantage
What the judge wrote, as written, with how often. The vendor table decides that these count as First Advantage; a claim can dispute any of them.
First Advantage (FDX) 1First Advantage (Small Business Portal) 1
Follow First Advantage
An email the morning each edition publishes: where this product moved, where it held, and by how much against the noise floor. One address, confirmed by a click; a stop link in every email.
Already following? Everything you follow, with a stop for each.
Is this your product?
Claim this page
Claiming is free and changes nothing in the data. A claimed page shows a verified contact who is told when each edition publishes and when First Advantage's standing changes by more than the noise floor; the right to propose corrections to the vendor table, meaning names the judge wrote that should or should not read as First Advantage, applied by version and listed in the change log; and a one-line description supplied by the vendor and marked as such.
What a new claim receivesHide what a new claim receives
A new claim receives the current edition's vendor brief for First Advantage by email, built from the raw record of the edition. It shows:
- where First Advantage is named, by buyer and by framing, and which cells hold its first choices;
- the claims the models make when they name it, ranked, with the strongest and the weakest quoted;
- its vocabulary against the segment leader's, and the pages the models cited;
- who was chosen in the answers that did not name First Advantage, and every reason the record gives;
- a battlecard for each top rival: the head-to-head split, why they win, and the reservation quoted against them;
- one page of published figures cleared to show a buyer.