AI citation
An AI citation is a visible reference to a page in an answer written by a language model. It is measured with repeated prompts; no site controls it.
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What an AI citation is
An AI citation is a visible reference to a page inside an answer generated by a language model. The model retrieves candidate passages, checks them against the question and then names the sources it used. A citation is the observable outcome of that process: the page URL appears next to the answer.
What it does and does not control
A site can influence retrieval by being crawlable, by stating facts in complete sentences, by dating numbers and by naming its entity consistently. A site cannot decide whether a model cites it. Models differ, change between versions and blend sources differently for the same prompt, which is why a citation is measured rather than assumed.
How to measure one
Write the questions customers ask. Run the same fixed prompt set in each answer engine, record which URLs appear and when, and store the results with their date. Repeat weekly or monthly. The useful signal is the trend over a set of prompts, not one screenshot of one answer.
Where it fits in the product
The GEO intent page sets out the checks: answer blocks, entity facts, schema, crawler access and citation probes. Each fix is a change set with a preview and an approval, and the probes record what the change did or did not alter.
Related terms
- GEO (generative engine optimization)
Generative engine optimization makes a site easy for an AI answer engine to retrieve, verify and cite: clear answers, entity facts, schema and bot access.
- llms.txt
llms.txt is a plain-text file proposed at a site's root to summarise it for language models and link key pages. It is a convention, not a standard.
- Core Web Vitals
Core Web Vitals are Google page-experience metrics — Largest Contentful Paint, Interaction to Next Paint, Cumulative Layout Shift — measured on real devices.
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