By the Variask team · Updated
Definition
Citation rate is the share of AI answers that cite or link to your website, out of all answers to the questions you track. It shows how often AI uses your pages as a source, which is different from how often it mentions your brand.
Also called AI citation rate
With Variask: Variask records every cited source by domain and page, so you see your citation rate next to your mention rate.
Questions
Visibility counts answers that name your brand. Citation rate counts answers that link to your site.
Perplexity, Google AI Overviews and AI Mode, Copilot and ChatGPT search usually show sources. Answers without search may cite nothing.
Related terms
Measurement
AI citations
AI citations are the links an AI assistant shows next to its answer to point to the pages it used, such as the numbered sources in Perplexity or the source links in ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews.
ReadMeasurement
Sources vs citations
Sources are all the pages an AI engine read or retrieved while writing an answer. Citations are the subset it shows to the user as links. A page can shape an answer without being cited.
ReadMeasurement
AI visibility
AI visibility is how often, and how prominently, AI assistants such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity mention your brand when people ask questions in your category.
ReadMeasurement
Mention rate
Mention rate is the share of AI answers that name your brand, out of all answers to the questions you track. It is the core of AI visibility, measured across engines, markets and repeated answers.
Read