- Category
- AI search
- Level
- Beginner
- Also called
- Citation
- Looks like
- Source cards, footnotes or inline links
- Different from
- A mention (your brand named without a link)
- Check it free
- AI Search Readiness Checker
What is an AI citation?
When an AI search feature or assistant answers from the web, it usually shows where the information came from: numbered footnotes in Perplexity, source cards in Google AI Overviews, inline links in ChatGPT search. Each of those links is a citation.
A citation isn't the same as a recommendation. Your page can be cited as the source of a fact while the answer recommends a competitor, and your brand can be recommended without your site being cited. Tracking both gives the full picture.
Why citations matter
- They send visitors, often with strong intent, to your site.
- They show which of your pages the systems trust.
- Pages that are cited once tend to be retrieved again for related questions.
How to earn citations
- Answer specific questions directly, in self-contained passages.
- Include facts worth citing: definitions, figures, steps, comparisons.
- Keep pages crawlable, indexable and fast.
- Update pages so dates and details stay current.