Glossary
Citation Share
Citation share is a brand’s proportion of all observed AI citations within a defined competitor set, prompt set and time period. Unlike citation frequency, which asks how often one brand is cited, citation share describes how the available citation attention is divided among competitors.
In plain terms
It is your portion of all the citation links earned by the brands being compared.
Why it matters
The metric reveals relative authority in crowded categories where several competitors may all have rising citation counts.
How to apply it
- Define the competitor set before measurement.
- Count citations with one consistent rule.
- Report by source domain and engine as well as in aggregate.
Example
A market produces 100 tracked vendor-domain citations; 24 point to one company, giving it a 24% citation share.
Sources
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Related terms
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Ranking is no longer enough
You need to be cited, mentioned, and recommended.
Being cited, mentioned, and recommended are three different outcomes, and most brands only ever achieve the first one. Ranking is no longer enough because AI engines answer buyers directly and name only a short list of vendors as the recommendation — everyone else is cited in passing, if at all. Get a free AI Visibility Report to see exactly where your brand appears today across ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Gemini, Perplexity, and Copilot, where competitors are winning the recommendation instead, and what's keeping you from moving up the shortlist.