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Citation rate is the percentage of AI answers that mention a brand which also cite a page on that brand’s own domain. In one line: when an AI talks about you, does it link you? The denominator is mentions, not all answers. That makes it a conversion metric — you have already won the mention, and this measures how often the mention comes with a link back.
This definition changed on 14 August 2026. It previously meant “answers containing a citation to any domain, out of all answers”. Values from before and after are not comparable. See Citation rate.
How often a mention also earns a link to your site.
Answers citing you ÷ answers mentioning you

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Why it matters

Citation rate measures whether the AI treats your domain as an authoritative source, not just whether it knows your name. A brand named in half of all answers but cited in almost none of them is discussed constantly and sourced from elsewhere — review aggregators, news articles, competitor comparison pages. Closing that gap is a primary AEO/GEO objective.

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How Cited uses it

Tracked across all five platforms Cited monitors — Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode, ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity — and available per platform, per topic and per prompt. Read it per platform before reading the blended number: spreads of 30 to 60 points inside a single brand are normal. Perplexity is a poor platform to judge yourself on — it cites densely but attaches citations to under half its answers and very rarely picks a brand’s own domain. Citation rate is undefined for a single source, because its denominator has no source dimension. Use citation share for a per-source view.