AI Citation Tracking

What Are AI Citations?

AI citations occur when AI search engines reference your website in their generated answers. These citations drive high-intent traffic. Visitors who click through from AI answers convert 4.4x better than organic search visitors.

Supported AI Engines

ReachSurge checks whether your site is cited across 5 AI answer engines:

1. ChatGPT (OpenAI)
2. Perplexity
3. Claude (Anthropic)
4. Google Gemini
5. Grok (xAI)

Google: counted once. Until 1 August 2026 this list named Google twice, as "Google Gemini" and "Google AI Search". Both names described a single call to Google's grounding system returning one set of results, so every Google citation was recorded twice. The second name never represented a second check. We measure Google through that grounded-retrieval call, not by reading the AI summaries in a Google search results page. If someone reaches your site from Google's AI answers, that appears separately in your referral traffic.

Microsoft Copilot: traffic signals only. Microsoft doesn't offer a public citation verification API, so Copilot is not included in direct citation checks and is excluded from the 90-day citation guarantee. When Copilot sends traffic to your site we still attribute it correctly in analytics.

How Citation Tracking Works

ReachSurge runs scheduled citation checks across all 5 verified AI engines for your tracked keywords: weekly on Starter and Growth plans, twice weekly on Enterprise. Your dashboard updates in real-time as new citation data arrives. The system:

1. Sends your keywords as queries to AI engines
2. Parses the responses for mentions of your domain
3. Records citation position, sentiment, and whether a link was included
4. Tracks trends over time and alerts you to new citations

Understanding Your Citation Data

• Citation Count: Total times your site was mentioned across all engines
• Sentiment: Whether the mention was positive, neutral, or negative
• Position: Where your citation appeared in the AI response
• Linked: Whether the AI provided a clickable link to your site
• Engine Breakdown: Which AI engines cite you most

AI Shopping Citations

Product-citation checks for AI shopping surfaces (Perplexity Shopping, ChatGPT product recommendations) are available through the API only, at POST /api/citations/shopping. They are not run on a schedule and their results do not appear on the Citations dashboard yet. If this matters to your store, tell us, it moves up the list.

Improving Your Citation Rate

1. Add structured data (JSON-LD schema): Article, FAQPage, Organization
2. Write clear, factual content with statistics every 150-200 words
3. Start each section with a direct answer in the first 40-60 words
4. Ensure your robots.txt allows the agents that decide citation (OAI-SearchBot, Claude-SearchBot, PerplexityBot, Bingbot, Google-Extended). The training crawlers GPTBot and ClaudeBot are a separate choice and do not by themselves affect whether you are cited
5. Build entity authority through consistent, expert content
6. Use the GEO Audit tool to identify specific improvements

Plan Limits

• Free: daily checks on up to 3 keywords, up to 93 checks/month (1 engine)
• Starter: 500 citation checks/month (all engines)
• Growth: 2,000 citation checks/month (all engines)
• Enterprise: 10,000 citation checks/month (all engines)

Measurement location

By default we send no location, no user profile, no memory and no conversation history. You can optionally set a measurement location per website (Settings → your site). What each engine then receives:

The 90-day guarantee is always measured without a set location, so your guarantee numbers stay comparable to your day-0 baseline even if you set a location later. A run records the location it was measured with, so your dashboard can tell you when the basis changed mid-period.

FAQ

How often are citations checked? On a tier-based schedule: weekly on Starter and Growth, twice weekly on Enterprise, and daily on Free (Perplexity only, up to 3 keywords). Each paid customer is assigned a fixed weekday so checks land predictably. Critical anomalies trigger real-time alerts regardless of the schedule.

Can I see which keywords triggered citations? Yes, the Citations dashboard shows the exact query, engine, sentiment, and position for each citation.

What are shopping citations? Product mentions in AI-powered shopping experiences. Available for e-commerce sites tracking specific products.