Citation Tracking

Citation Tracking is the practice of monitoring and analyzing how AI systems reference your brand, content, or website in their generated responses. This includes tracking direct mentions, paraphrased information, and any links or attributions AI provides to your content.

Types of AI Citations:

1. Direct Citations: AI explicitly mentions your brand or links to your content
2. Indirect References: AI uses information from your content without explicit attribution
3. Recommendations: AI suggests your product/service in response to user queries
4. Competitive Mentions: Your brand mentioned alongside or instead of competitors

Key Metrics to Track:

• Total citations across platforms
• Citation sentiment (positive, neutral, negative)
• Query types triggering citations
• Citation accuracy (is information correct?)
• Attribution quality (links vs. mentions)

Platforms to Monitor:

• ChatGPT and GPT-based applications
• Claude (Anthropic)
• Perplexity AI
• Google AI Overviews
• Gemini
• Microsoft Copilot

Citation tracking helps identify which content performs well with AI systems and reveals opportunities to improve visibility through targeted optimization.