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Citation tracking

Know who gets cited.

Every answer, every source, every week.

Prominara citation tracking records, on a schedule, whether ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google's AI surfaces name your brand when buyers ask the questions you care about, and which sources they cite instead. It is part of Prominara, a GEO platform that tracks brand visibility across AI answers.

Ask an assistant about your category once and you get an anecdote. Ask it the same question every week, three times, in three phrasings, and you get a measurement.

01Recorded

Six things, every answer.

“Did they mention us” is one question. These are the six that tell you what to do next.

Mentioned in the text
The answer names your brand in its prose, whether or not it links to you.
Cited in the sources
Your domain appears in the answer’s source list. This is the link a reader can actually click.
Search activated
Whether the model searched the web for this answer or replied from memory. Being skipped after a search is a different problem from never being searched for.
Recommended
The answer does not just mention you, it advises the reader to use you.
Competitors named
Which rivals appear in the same answer, and which of their pages the model cited.
Position in the answer
Whether you lead the answer or trail a list of five other options.
02Platforms

Six surfaces, measured separately.

Each engine picks sources its own way, so blending them into one number hides the problem you can actually fix.

  • ChatGPT

    Records whether ChatGPT named you, whether it ran a web search first, and which domains it cited. Answers from memory and answers from search are counted separately.

  • Perplexity

    Perplexity cites sources on every answer, so the source list is the measurement. Every cited URL is captured, not just the ones pointing at you.

  • Google AI Overviews

    Read from the live search result rather than an API, because the Overview a searcher sees is not the same as a model answer.

  • Google AI Mode

    Tracked as its own surface. A brand can hold an Overview and be absent from AI Mode on the same query.

  • Gemini

    Run with live Google Search grounding, so the sources reflect what Gemini retrieved rather than what it memorised.

  • Claude

    Tracked for brands whose buyers research inside Claude. Its citation behaviour differs from the search-native surfaces.

03Method

Why the number holds up.

An AI answer changes between runs. Everything below exists so a change in your number means something changed in the world.

  1. 01

    Prompts are frozen

    A tracked prompt keeps its exact wording for as long as you measure it. Rewording a prompt mid-experiment changes what you are measuring, so the wording and its paraphrases are locked at creation.

  2. 02

    Each prompt runs repeatedly

    Prompts inside a measurement window run three times, in three phrasings, per pass. One run tells you what a model said once. Nine tell you what it tends to say.

  3. 03

    Failures are missing data, not zeros

    When a provider errors, that run is excluded from the denominator. A failed check is not evidence that you are invisible.

  4. 04

    Only earned prompts set the headline

    Prompts that name your brand, or seed a competitor, are reported in their own panels. A question that already contains your name is not evidence that you were found.

  5. 05

    Changes are measured against a control

    When you log a page you shipped, its prompts are compared against prompts you did not touch, so a verdict separates your change from a platform-wide shift.

04Limits

What this does not do.

  • AI answers vary between runs. A single check is an anecdote, which is why the measurement repeats and reports a rate rather than a yes or no.
  • Citation rate is not traffic. Tracking tells you whether you are in the answer; your analytics tell you whether anyone clicked.
  • No tool can promise a placement in an AI answer, and no honest one will give you a timeline for earning one.
  • AI Overviews and AI Mode are read from live search results, which is a different measurement from a model API. They are reported as separate surfaces rather than blended into one number.
05Questions

Questions.

How do I track brand mentions in ChatGPT?
Add the questions your buyers ask as tracked prompts, then let them run on a schedule. Each pass records whether ChatGPT named your brand in the text, whether your domain appeared in its sources, whether it searched the web at all, and which competitors it named in the same answer. Checking manually gives you one sample of a system that answers differently each time.
Can I see which sources Perplexity cited?
Yes. Every cited URL in every tracked answer is stored, not only the ones pointing at your domain. That is what shows you which publications, directories and competitor pages are winning the citations you want.
What is the difference between a mention and a citation?
A mention means the answer named your brand in its prose. A citation means your domain appeared in the answer’s source list, which is the link a reader can click. Prominara records them separately because they are different outcomes with different fixes.
How often are prompts checked?
Cadence depends on your plan, and the fastest available is weekly. Daily checking is not offered: AI answers do not move fast enough for a daily number to mean anything, and the extra runs would cost more than the information is worth.
Does citation tracking work for competitors too?
Yes. Every tracked answer is scanned for competitor brands, both the rivals you configure and ones discovered in the answers themselves, so you can see share of voice per platform rather than only your own rate.
Can I prove a content change improved my citation rate?
That is what the measurement is built for. Log the page you shipped and its prompts are sampled more heavily for the following weeks, then compared against prompts you did not touch. The verdict states what the evidence supports, including when it supports nothing yet.
Is citation tracking included in the trial?
Yes. Every plan includes citation tracking, and the 14-day trial runs on the full workflow with no credit card.

Start with one question your buyers ask.

Add the prompt, run the check, see who the answer names today.

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