# Citations: See who gets cited, where and how. > Read every AI answer that cites you or a rival on ten engines: position, sentiment, competitors named alongside you, and an alert when you lose first place. [HTML version](https://www.citeme.io/features/citations) --- An AI answer typically cites one to three sources. Citeme reads every answer on the ten engines, records whether you are named, where you rank and in what tone, and alerts you when you lose first place. ## Key numbers - **10** AI engines read - **1 to 3** sources named in an AI answer - **3** readings per answer - **30/60/90 d** Share of Model trend ## What is an AI citation? A citation is an AI answer that names you: your brand, a product, your URL or an associated entity. Citeme establishes it by querying the engines, replaying your prompts and smoothing the result over several iterations, because engines are not deterministic. A visit is a different measurement, established in your logs, and the two are kept apart before they are matched. ## Three readings, not one flag. ### Mention detection Your brand, a product name, your URL or any associated entity, found through NLP rather than string matching, so implicit mentions and paraphrases count too. ### Sentiment on every mention Positive for an explicit recommendation, neutral for a factual citation, negative for a warning or a criticism, with a separate class for mentions that are not relevant. ### Ranking position Where you land when the model lists several solutions, recorded answer by answer, because being named first weighs far more than a closing aside. ### Raw answer, per model Open each keyword to read what every model answered, your position inside it, the competitors cited alongside you and the excerpts that show how it describes you. ### Citation alerts Lose first position on a query and you hear about it, with the competitor that displaced you. A new domain cited in your sector triggers its own alert. ### Linked to real visits Citations sit next to AI crawl and referral data, so you see whether a cited page is read by the bots and whether anyone arrives from it. ## What you can do with every citation. ### Open the raw answer Per keyword, open the raw answer from each model: your exact position inside it, the competitors cited alongside you, your sentiment and the excerpts that show how the model talks about you. ### Roll it up Answers aggregate into citation frequency, a recommendation rate that counts only the answers ranking you first, and share of voice broken down per model. Each keyword is asked zero-shot, chain-of-thought and few-shot. ### Watch the Share of Model An AI answer typically cites one to three sources, so a cited competitor holds a slot you cannot. Share of Model shows the percentage of answers naming each brand, per model, with the trend over 30, 60 and 90 days. ### Get alerted on change Two alerts fire on a change of state, by email and on the dashboard. Citation loss names the competitor that displaced you from first position. New opportunity flags an untracked domain that starts being cited in your sector. ## Three steps. No setup project. 1. **Run your prompts** Each audit sends your prompts to the ten engines, in your region. 2. **Read every answer** Mentions, position and sentiment are extracted answer by answer, competitors included. 3. **Act on the change** Alerts land by email and on the dashboard when you lose first place or a new domain appears. ## FAQ ### What counts as a citation? Any answer that names your brand, a product, your URL or an associated entity. Detection relies on NLP rather than string matching, so implicit mentions and paraphrases count too. Each mention then gets a sentiment and, when the model lists several solutions, a ranking position. ### What is the recommendation rate? The share of answers that rank you first. It is reported next to citation frequency, which counts every answer that mentions you, and share of voice broken down per model. Being named first weighs far more than a closing aside, which is why position is recorded answer by answer. ### Why does a competitor's citation matter so much? Because GEO runs close to zero sum. Where dozens of pages share the organic results, an AI answer typically cites one to three sources, so a competitor who is cited occupies a slot you cannot occupy at the same time. Share of Model shows each brand's slice, per model. ### What happens when I lose a citation? A citation loss alert fires by email and as a dashboard notification. It names the competitor that displaced you, analyses what changed in their recent content, and the copilot turns that into counter-attack suggestions. The alert fixes nothing itself: you schedule the work, or wire an Action that re-audits, rewrites the page and republishes, with an approval gate if you want one. ### Is a citation the same as an AI visit? No. A citation is established by querying the engines: Citeme replays your prompts, records which answers cite which of your pages and smooths the result over several iterations. A visit is established in your logs. AI Impact matches the two, and that match is probabilistic, because AI referrers are incomplete and often stripped. ### Can I read my citations from ChatGPT or Claude? Yes. The Citeme MCP server exposes list_citations, which returns the citations recorded across the ten engines, and list_ai_visits, the visits that came from an AI. Together they let an assistant tell you which pages the engines cite, and whether those citations bring anyone to the site. ### How fresh is the citation data? As fresh as your last audit, since citations are measured by querying the engines rather than read from your logs. Results are smoothed over several iterations because engines are not deterministic, and a rhythm of at least one audit every two weeks is recommended. ## Related pages - [Competitive Monitoring](https://www.citeme.io/features/competitive-monitoring): Who AI recommends instead - [Prompt Tracking](https://www.citeme.io/features/prompt-tracking): Your buyers’ questions, on 10 engines - [AI Impact](https://www.citeme.io/features/ai-impact): Who arrives from an AI, and what they buy - [Nova, AI agent](https://www.citeme.io/features/ai-agents): Finds the gap, drafts the fix