What is an AI citation?
An AI citation is a source an AI answer links. How it differs from a brand mention, why both matter, and how to see which sources AI engines cite for you.
What is an AI citation?
At a glance
| Citation | A page the answer links as a source |
|---|---|
| Mention | The brand's name in the answer text |
| Seen in | ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, AI Overviews, AI Mode |
| Manifold tool | aeo_run_ai_answers returns both, per answer |
Citation or mention
| Citation | Mention | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | A link to a source page | Your brand's name in the answer text |
| What it gives you | A click, and proof the engine reads your page | Your name in front of the reader |
| Can happen without the other | Yes: an engine can cite your article and name other brands from it | Yes: an engine can name you and cite someone else's page |
Both happen often apart. In our own baseline of 218 answers to questions that did not name us, our site was cited in 10.1% of answers and our brand named in 3.7%. The engines read our comparison articles and recommended the other tools in them.
Which sources get cited
It depends on the question and the engine. Across our 52 buyer questions about marketing MCP servers, the domains cited for the most questions where we were absent were GitHub, Reddit and YouTube, then Google's own help pages, vendors' sites and docs, and roundup articles. Each engine leans on different sources: only Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode cited YouTube videos, and Perplexity, then ChatGPT, linked vendors' own sites and docs the most.
How to earn more citations
- Run your buyers' questions and list the cited URLs where you are absent.
- Group them: directories and lists you can be added to, threads you can answer, articles whose authors you can reach, and your own pages that should answer the question better.
- Re-run the same questions in a few weeks and compare.
Doing it with Manifold
aeo_run_ai_answers returns every citation's URL and position for each answer, beside the brands named, so your agent can do the first step in one call per ten questions.
