Glossary
What is an AI citation?
An AI citation is a source link an AI assistant or AI search feature shows alongside its answer, pointing to the page it drew from. Perplexity, ChatGPT search, Google AI Overviews and Copilot all cite sources. Being cited sends visitors and signals that the engine trusted your page for that answer.
Citation vs mention
A mention is your name in the answer. A citation is a link to your page as a source. You can be cited without being recommended (the engine used your data) or recommended without being cited (it learned about you elsewhere). Both count toward AI visibility.
What gets cited
- Pages that answer the exact question near the top.
- Original data and statistics pages with sources.
- Definitions and glossaries.
- Comparison and "best of" pages for product questions.
- Official docs and pricing pages for factual questions about a product.
The GEO research found that adding statistics and citations to pages raised their visibility in generated answers, which matches what gets cited in practice.
How to earn more
Make each page quotable: one clear claim per paragraph, numbers with sources, a date. Keep pages crawlable by the AI search bots you want, such as OAI-SearchBot and PerplexityBot. And rank in normal search, since retrieval often starts there.
Example
A statistics page on launch directories gets cited by Perplexity whenever someone asks how many directories give dofollow links, because it states the number plainly with the method behind it.
FAQ
Do AI citations help SEO?
They're not backlinks, but they send visitors and reflect authority on a topic.
Which AI engines show citations?
Perplexity, ChatGPT with search, Google AI Overviews and AI Mode, Copilot and others.
Can I block AI engines from citing my site?
You can block their crawlers in robots.txt, which also removes you from their answers.