Citations
See every domain and URL AI engines cite when answering your tracked prompts, grouped into eight source types, and find the sources to target.
Updated
The AnswerixAI Citations page shows which websites AI engines cite as sources when they answer your tracked prompts. It is for marketers and SEO teams who want to know which pages shape AI answers in their category, which of those pages are their own, and which third-party sites to approach for coverage. Open it from Citations in the dashboard sidebar.
What does the Citations page show?
The AnswerixAI Citations page aggregates the source links attached to every AI answer collected for your brand in the selected date range. Three cards, Total Citations, Unique Domains and Avg citations per result, summarize the window, and the Top Sources panel below has four tabs: Domains, URLs, Competitor Gaps and Source Types.
| Card | What it counts |
|---|---|
| Total Citations | Every source link across the tracked answers in the window. |
| Unique Domains | Distinct domains cited, with the number of distinct URLs underneath. |
| Avg citations per result | The average number of links per AI answer. |
What are the eight citation source types?
AnswerixAI classifies every cited domain into one of eight source types. The first rule that matches wins, so your own domains and your tracked competitors' domains always take priority over the content categories.
| Source type | How a domain qualifies | Example domains |
|---|---|---|
| You | Matches one of your brand's domains (or a subdomain of one). | The domains in your brand settings |
| Competitor | Matches the domain of a competitor you track. | Your tracked competitors' domains |
| Forum | A community or Q&A site. | reddit.com, quora.com, stackoverflow.com, news.ycombinator.com |
| Social | A social network, video or creator platform. | youtube.com, x.com, linkedin.com, medium.com, substack.com |
| Review | A review or rating site. | g2.com, capterra.com, trustpilot.com, yelp.com, consumerreports.org |
| Institutional | A government, education or international body, including .gov, .edu and .mil domains. |
wikipedia.org, who.int, nih.gov, europa.eu |
| Editorial | A known news, magazine or publisher site. | nytimes.com (including Wirecutter), theverge.com, techcrunch.com, forbes.com, wired.com |
| Other | Anything that doesn't match a rule above. | Most brand, vendor and niche sites |
The Editorial list is deliberately short, so an unfamiliar publisher can land in Other. The You and Competitor types depend on your setup: add your domains in brand settings and track competitors with a domain so AnswerixAI can recognize their pages.
How do I filter citations?
You filter the AnswerixAI Citations page with five filters that scope every tab: Date range (24h by default), Topic, Prompt, Platform and Region. The Domains and URLs tabs also have an All, Brand, Competitors or Third-Party scope toggle.
- Date range: 24h, 7d, 30d, 90d, All or Custom. The default is the last 24 hours.
- Topic: limit results to the prompts in one topic.
- Prompt: pick a single tracked prompt.
- Platform: pick one AI engine.
- Region: pick one tracking region.
The Domains and URLs tabs also have a scope toggle: All, Brand, Competitors or Third-Party. Brand shows only your own domains, Competitors shows only tracked competitors' domains, and Third-Party shows everything else. The toggle doesn't change the summary cards, Competitor Gaps or Source Types.
If a window has no citations but older data exists, the table offers Show all data to switch to the full history.
What does the Domains tab show?
The Domains tab ranks every cited domain by how many times it was cited in the window. Rankings are fixed; you can't re-sort the columns.
| Column | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Rank | Position in the ranking. |
| Domain | The domain, its source type badge and a link to open the site. |
| Platforms | The AI engines that cited the domain. |
| Usage | The share of AI answers in the window that cited at least one page on the domain. |
| Avg Citations | The average number of links to the domain in each answer that cites it. |
| Add as competitor | A button on third-party rows that opens a dialog to track the domain as a competitor. You can edit the name before you click Add. |
What does the URLs tab show?
The URLs tab ranks individual pages by how many times they were cited, with the same fixed ranking. It shows up to 2,000 URLs per view.
| Column | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Rank | Position in the ranking. |
| URL | The page title (or URL), its domain and source type badge. |
| Platforms | The AI engines that cited the page. |
| Usage | The share of AI answers in the window that cited this page. |
| Citations | Total times the page was cited. |
Click a page title to open its detail page. The external-link icon opens the page itself in a new tab.
What is on the URL detail page?
The URL detail page shows how one cited page is used across AI answers. It opens with the same date and platform filters you had on the Citations page, and it shows five cards: Total citations, Answers citing, Prompts, Platforms and Last seen (with the first-seen date).
The Cited in table lists every AI answer that cited the page in the window:
| Column | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Date | When the answer was collected. |
| Platform | The AI engine that gave the answer. |
| Prompt | The tracked prompt, linked to its prompt page. |
| Sentiment | The sentiment of the answer toward your brand. |
| Brand mentioned | A check mark when the AI answer mentioned your brand. It does not describe the cited page's own content. |
| Position | Where the link sat among the answer's sources, for example "Early · #1 of 6". |
The Prompts breakdown table groups the same data by prompt, with Answers, Citations and Last seen for each.
If the page is on one of your domains, it shows an Owned badge plus two extra cards: the prompts that target the URL and the AI-referred visits it received (from AI Traffic Analytics). For any other domain, an Add as competitor button appears in the header.
What does the Competitor Gaps tab show?
The Competitor Gaps tab on the Citations page lists the sources that feed AI answers about your competitors but never appear in answers where you're present. It has two views: Gap list, which ranks those domains across all tracked competitors, and By competitor, which shows the sources behind one competitor's answers.
- Gap list: domains cited in at least two answers that mention a tracked competitor, and in no answer that mentions you. Columns: Domain, Source type, Competitor answers, Which competitors and Strength. The list shows up to 100 domains.
- By competitor: pick a competitor to see the sources behind its answers. Columns: Domain, Source type, Answers feeding, Also cites us? and Strength.
Strength weights each answer by how many sources it cited, so a domain that is one of two sources counts more than one of twenty. When fewer than 10% of answers in the window mention you, a warning explains that the list may be broad and that baseline visibility comes first.
What does the Source Types tab show?
The Source Types tab is a donut chart of the cited domains in the window, split by the eight source types, with the percentage of domains in each type. Use it to see whether AI engines in your category lean on forums, reviews, editorial coverage or brand sites.
How do I export citation data?
To export citation data, click Export CSV at the top of the Citations page. The export covers the active tab (Domains, URLs or Competitor Gaps) with your current filters; Source Types is a chart and can't be exported. Each export has these columns:
- Domains: domain, category, total citations, answers citing, usage percentage and models.
- URLs: URL, domain, category, title, total citations, answers citing and usage percentage.
- Competitor Gaps: domain, category, competitor answers, competitors and strength.
How do I use citation data in practice?
Citation data in AnswerixAI supports three common workflows: finding the sources behind competitor answers, building an outreach list of third-party sites, and checking that your own pages are cited.
How do I find the sources behind competitor answers?
- Open Citations and set Date range to 30d or 90d.
- Open the Competitor Gaps tab and stay on Gap list.
- Start with the highest Strength rows. Review, editorial and forum domains here are sources where a competitor earns coverage and you don't.
- Switch to By competitor to see one rival's sources and check Also cites us? for overlap.
- Turn the gaps into work in Content or into outreach.
How do I build an outreach list?
- Open the Source Types tab to see which types dominate your category.
- On the Domains tab, select Third-Party and look for the dominant types, such as Review or Editorial.
- Open the URLs tab with Third-Party selected, then click a high-ranking page.
- In Cited in, look at Brand mentioned. Pages that AI engines cite in answers that don't mention you are candidates for inclusion requests.
- Click Export CSV to share the list with your team.
How do I check that my own pages are cited?
- On the Domains or URLs tab, select Brand.
- Open one of your URLs to see which prompts cite it and the AI-referred visits it earns.
- If a page you care about is missing, check Site Audit for structural issues.
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