Citation rate is computed from repeated runs of a prompt portfolio: divide the number of answers that include a link or source reference to the brand's domain by the total number of sampled answers, per engine and per period. It is reported alongside mention rate (the brand is named) and recommendation rate (the brand is advised).
Why it matters
A brand can be mentioned from model memory without any of its pages being involved. A citation, by contrast, proves that the engine retrieved the brand's own content and considered it good enough to ground the answer. Rising citation rate usually indicates that pages have become more extractable, claims more verifiable and crawler access healthier.
- Compute it per engine: citation behavior differs widely between ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and AI Overviews.
- Track the cited URLs, not just the count: which pages earn citations tells you what to replicate.
- Compare against competitor domains for share-of-citations in the category.
- Expect variance: report trends over weeks, not single runs.
Citation rate is one of the three core metrics in the AI Visibility Index methodology used on this site.