AI citation
An AI citation is a source link that an AI assistant attaches to its answer to show where the information came from. It is different from a mention, which is the brand named in the answer text: a brand can be named without being cited, and its site can be cited without the brand being named.
Mention versus citation
A mention is the brand name in the answer text. A citation is a link to a page, shown beside or under the answer. An assistant can recommend a brand in the text and cite only a review site, or cite a brand's blog post for a general fact and recommend competitors. CitePrism counts the two separately: named when the brand appears in the answer, cited when its domain appears as a source.
Why citations matter
Citations show which sources shaped the answer, and they are the part of an AI answer a brand can act on. A cited review site where your listing is thin, a cited competitor comparison that needs a better counterpart, a cited page of your own that is working: each is a task or a signal. Mentions are the score; citations explain it.
How they are tracked
By sampling. A fixed prompt set runs against each engine on a schedule, and every cited link is stored with its answer, then grouped by domain and by type of site. The result is citation share, read per engine, because the engines cite differently: Perplexity cites on nearly every answer, while others cite mainly when they search the web.