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The Citations page ranks the websites AI platforms use to build their answers. It uses its own set of metrics, described here.

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Sources and citations

Two terms come up on every source metric:
  • A source is any web page the AI platform lists alongside its answer, for example in its sources panel or list of links.
  • A citation is a source that is also linked to a specific part of the answer, usually as a small numbered link or chip next to a sentence.
Every citation is a source, but not every source is a citation. A page can be listed among the sources without being linked to anything the answer says.
In a chat’s details, the Citations tab shows the cited pages and the Sources tab shows only the remaining pages that were not cited. Together they make up all of the answer’s sources.

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Retrieved

The share of all answers that used at least one page from this domain.
If 300 answers were collected and 45 of them used a page from example.com, it was retrieved in 15% of answers. This is the clearest measure of how much a domain matters for your prompts.

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Retrieval rate

The average number of different pages from this domain used per answer, across all answers.
It is shown as a plain number rather than a percentage, and it can be above 1 when answers regularly use several pages from the same domain. A high retrieval rate usually means the domain has deep coverage of your topics.

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Citation rate for a source

When this domain or URL is used, how many times on average the answer cites it.
Also a plain number. A value near 0 means the source is read but rarely credited; a value of 1 or more means answers that use it usually reference it, sometimes more than once.
This is different from the Citation Rate on the dashboard, which is the percentage of all answers that used your own website.

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Gap score

The total number of competitor mentions in the answers that used this source.
A high gap score points to a source that AI platforms rely on and that comes with many competitor mentions: the places where competitors are winning attention. A - means no tracked competitor was named in those answers.

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Mentions (URLs only)

On the URLs tab, Mentions counts the different brands named in answers that used the page. It shows whether a page tends to feed answers that list many brands or just a few.

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Put it to work

  • Start with gap score. Sort the Sources table by gap score, then ignore your own and competitors’ websites. What remains (review sites, publications, directories, forums) are candidates for outreach, PR, listings or community participation.
  • Look for pages, not just domains. On the URLs tab, a single listicle or comparison page with a high gap score can be worth more than a whole domain.
  • Check retrieved-but-not-cited. A domain with high Retrieved and a low citation rate shapes answers quietly. Being featured there still counts, even if the answer never links to it.