A reference to your brand or website inside an AI-generated answer. Cited brands receive both visibility and (often) a direct link, similar to a SERP position 1 result.
Citations come in two flavors: named (the AI mentions your brand name in the answer text) and linked (the AI provides a URL to your site as a source). Perplexity and Bing Copilot reliably link; ChatGPT and Claude name brands more than they link.
Earning citations requires three things: presence in the AI's training data, fresh signals via crawlable pages with schema, and topical authority on the specific query. VibecodeAEO tracks every citation, every prompt, every engine — so you know what content is earning your brand answer-engine real estate.
Real-world example
A marketing analytics platform publishes a comprehensive guide on attribution modeling with FAQPage schema. Perplexity begins citing it as a source in 'what is multi-touch attribution?' queries — the citation drives 340 monthly visits from a query they had never ranked for in Google.
Frequently asked questions
How do I get my brand cited in AI answers?+
Publish authoritative, question-intent content with FAQPage schema. Earn backlinks from credible sources. Ship an llms.txt. Ensure your robots.txt allows AI crawlers. Build topical authority by covering your subject area comprehensively — all these signals compound into citation likelihood.
What is the difference between a named citation and a linked citation?+
A named citation is when an AI says 'according to BrandX' or 'tools like BrandX' without a URL. A linked citation includes a clickable URL to your domain. Perplexity and Bing Copilot show linked citations; ChatGPT and Claude often only name brands. Both drive brand awareness, but linked citations deliver direct traffic.
Related terms
Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) — The practice of optimizing content, schema, and brand signals so that AI answer engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini cite your brand accurately when answering user queries.
Answer Engine — An AI system that responds to natural-language queries with a synthesized answer rather than a list of links — examples include ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, and Anthropic Claude.
AI Visibility Score — A 0-100 metric measuring how often and how favorably your brand is mentioned across major AI answer engines for a tracked set of buyer-intent prompts.
AI Share of Voice — Your brand's percentage of total citations across AI answer engines for a defined set of prompts in a category — the AEO equivalent of share of voice in advertising.