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Two things can happen to you in an AI answer:
  • A mention: your brand is named in the text.
  • A citation: the answer links to, or lists as a source, a page on your domain.
They are independent. AI often names brands it already knows without linking anywhere, and it often cites a page without naming the company behind it.

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The metrics

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Why the separation matters

  • A high mention rate with few citations is normal for a well-known brand and tells you AI is drawing on general knowledge rather than your pages. Your pages are not yet a source.
  • Citations without mentions mean a page of yours is useful to the AI but is not carrying your brand into the answer. Entity clarity on that page fixes it.
  • Only tracking one of the two would hide both patterns.

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Citation types

Every cited source is classified by type: editorial and blogs, review platforms, directories and listings, comparison aggregators, news and media, community and forums (including Reddit threads), video, podcasts, reference and academic, social, and corporate sites. Each type implies a different outreach play, and the Off-site tab of the Action Centre turns them into actions.

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Whether a source references you

On the Sources page, Source mention checks whether your brand is referenced on the cited page itself, using the title, URL, site name and snippet the platform returned. It does not fetch the live page.