What is a citation in an AI answer?

A citation is a link an AI assistant attaches to its answer to show where a statement came from. Perplexity numbers them; ChatGPT shows source chips; Google's AI Overviews list links beside the summary.

Being cited and being named are different measures:

• Named means your brand appears in the text. It matters most on buying questions ("which course should I take").
• Cited means one of your pages is among the sources. It matters most on fact questions ("how many questions are on the exam"), where the answer rarely names any brand and the source is the only credit.

They often come apart. An answer can cite your pricing page and recommend a rival, or name you from a roundup without linking to you at all. In our sample of eight ChatGPT answers, the answer to "how do I get my brand mentioned in ChatGPT answers" named no tool but cited OpenAI's docs, Search Engine Land and Semrush (the sample).

Citations are also the trail back to why an answer says what it says. Read the cited pages for a question that leaves you out, and you usually find the list that names your rivals and not you. In Keats, a tier-3 question meets its aim when one of your pages is cited in at least a quarter of its answers (see question tiers).