Using Citation Analysis

Part of the AI Brand Visibility module, Citation Analysis shows the sources shaping the AI answers. See the overall domains being cited as sources, and drill down to the individual source URL for topics and prompts. 

The Value of Citation Analysis

This report shows the sources that Gen AI trusts and relies on when surfacing brands within answers. It allows you to:

• Understand the core source types, domains and URLs for the topics you care about
• Review the different types of sources
• Create strategies to either become a trusted source, or partner with trusted sources so your brand becomes more visible for the topics and prompts that impact your brand

Report Use Cases

• Identify the domains and URLs with the greatest influence on AI answers
• Drill down to see which specific prompts are shaped by each source
• Track where your brand is (or isn’t) being mentioned or cited in Gen AI search
• Pinpoint opportunities to boost visibility and take clear action onsite (analyzing competitor domains and bolstering relevant content on your own site) and offsite (seeing the best opportunities for partnerships, PR, brand-building, reviews etc). 

Report Location

This report lives inside the AI Brand Visibility module. In the lefthand menu of Web Intelligence, under Gen AI Intelligence, select AI Brand Visibility. Click into an open campaign you have created, and navigate to Citation Analysis.

Note that if you haven’t set up a campaign yet, visit this page and follow the setup guide.

Features and How to Use It

Top Domains by Topic

The initial view shows you each topic you track and the domains most cited by ChatGPT. The size of the boxes is proportional to the number of times the domain is used as a source within the topic. 

To dive deeper into a topic, click on the topic name. 

Each box’s size is still proportional to the domain’s influence score. Hover over any of the domains to see the following...

Source Category: the type of website the source belongs to. We have seven buckets for sources:

• News and publishers
• Reviews and UGC (user generated content)
• My domain (your own website)
• Competitor domains (brands that offer a product/service related to the topic)
• Marketplace
• Social media
• Other

Domain Influence Score: how often the domain appears across answers for the topic in a percentage. If a domain was cited in all answers of a topic it would have a score of 100%, if cited in half of the answers, it would have a score of 50%. 

# of cited URLs: the individual number of URLs that are used as cited sources within the answers

Top tip: click ‘others’ to see all of the domains used within the answers to ensure you have eyes on all the sources you can take inspiration from or look to partner with to improve your visibility. 

Top tip: For any domain you hover over, if you ‘click to filter the table below’ you will see each of the pages (URLs) from that domain that have been sourced by ChatGPT in its answer. 

Cited URLs

The cited URLs section shows the pages cited in the responses generated by chatbots for prompts within the topic you’re tracking. For each URL, you can see its Influence Score (how often it was used across responses), the topics it was cited in, and the prompts it was used in during the selected timeframe.

Digging deeper into the URLs

You can sort and filter the table:

• Search: you can use the free text field to search for particular URLs or URLs containing particular words
• Domain: specify the main domain to see all URLs from the domain that are sourced
• Category: analyze the URLs by the domain type (ie. news & publishers, reviews & UGC etc)
• Topic: view all topics or drill down into a particular topic to get the URLs most relevant

The information you can gain from the cited URLs:

• URL: exact URL of the page
• Influence score: how often the page is cited within the timeframe, so you can quickly see the most influential URLs
• Source category: as above
• Topics: pre-defined grouping you determine at campaign set-up
• # of prompts: the number of prompts this URL was used as a source for

Top tip: hover over any URL, click the blue arrow that appears. In the pop-up you will see all of the prompts that the URL was a source for. It will also tell you if your brand is mentioned in the answer and give you the Chatbot answer too. 

FAQs

1. What is the difference between Domain Influence Score and URL Influence Score?

• Domain Influence Score shows how often an entire domain is cited across answers for a topic.
• URL Influence Score drills down to the individual page level, showing how frequently a specific page is used as a source.

2. Can I see if my own brand’s website is being cited?
Yes. Your site will appear under the “My Domain” source category. You can then drill down to see which pages are being cited, how often, and for which prompts.

3. How can I use Citation Analysis to improve my brand’s visibility?
You can identify the most trusted domains and URLs for your tracked topics, see which competitors are being surfaced, and decide whether to strengthen your own content or partner with high-influence sources (like publishers, marketplaces, or review sites).

4. What’s the best way to explore the cited URLs?
Use the filters (domain, category, topic) to narrow results and the hover + blue arrow pop-up to view prompts where the URL was sourced. This also tells you if your brand was mentioned in the AI answer, helping you connect visibility directly to content opportunities.