What counts as a citation in AI visibility tracking?
A citation counts when an engine's answer links or attributes a claim to your domain in a response we actually collected. A brand mention without attribution is recorded separately, because it is a weaker signal. We never infer a citation from a ranking position, and an unresolved collection is reported as unknown rather than zero.
The distinction matters because the two behave differently: an attributed link is something a reader can follow, while an unattributed mention shapes perception without sending anyone anywhere.
Runs that fail to collect cleanly are marked as such. Reporting an unresolved run as a zero would quietly convert a collection problem into an apparent visibility drop, and you would spend a week debugging your content instead of our pipeline.
What this answer is based on
- Citation and mention definitions
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Last updated August 3, 2026