GLOSSARY

Citation

IN ONE SENTENCE

A citation is the link or attribution in an AI answer pointing at a specific source.

In detail

Being mentioned and being cited are different: a mention only needs the model to know your name, while a citation needs a specific retrievable, checkable page. Mention rate rising before citation rate is the normal order. Platforms display citations very differently — listed, footnoted, or not at all — and no display does not mean no retrieval.

Data behind this page

40.1% / 26.3% / 23.5%

English AI answer citation share (Reddit / Wikipedia / YouTube)

Source：Semrush, 150,000+ citations / 5,000 keywords，2025-06

rarely above 5%

Share ceiling for the most-cited domain on a single platform

Source：Evertune, ~200M prompts (secondary source, distribution shape only)，2026

Sources

[1]AI answer citation source distribution (150,000+ citations / 5,000 keywords)．Semrush．2025-06
[2]Citation domain distribution across ~200M prompts．Evertune (via 2026 industry review; secondary source, distribution shape only)．2026

Updated 2026-08-10