u/Puzzleheaded-Walk426

So, I'm seeing a lot of posts, questions, and discussions about AI citations, and I have a feeling we're mixing two totally different things with very different impacts. That's why I decided to create this post.

So, you're not getting cited in AI... ah.... and you want to increase your AI visibility through AI citations.... well... I don't know how to put it nicely, but the fact that ChatGPT pulls your blog post as a source doesn't mean it's going to recommend your brand next time someone asks for the best XX tool.

In fact, it may as well recommend your competitor based on your comparison article (good for them!).

So, my point is that increasing the number of your very own blog posts used as sources in LLMs won't make your brand more recommended - won't get you more traffic (organic traffic is gone for good btw, but that's another story), so stop focusing on citations with your URLs. It's a good side-metric, but not the one that moves the needle.

Now, the other type of AI citations that could actually be beneficial to your brand's (true) AI visibility are the third-party sources (AI citations) LLMs already use for specific prompts. So, these are not your blog posts; these are third-party blog posts, YouTube videos, Reddit or LinkedIn posts that talk about various brands, provide insights about them, pros and cons, share experience, etc.

I've been playing a lot with AI visibility for the past 6 months, first through manual experimentation (still ongoing), and now with Mentionlytics and its AI visibility platform, and spotted a very unusual pattern:

1. Did you know that not all prompts rely on the same domains as sources? I tracked 10 prompts related to the travel industry using Mentionlytics across ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, AI Mode, and AI Overview, and overall Reddit shows up as the most cited source... but then you dig deeper and find out that for 4/10 prompts, LLMs don't use Reddit as a source at all... So, you need to go to sources by prompt to see which channel you want to invest the most.
2. Each LLM has its own go-to sources, and you have to track them separately or have a dashboard that shows you sources by LLMs to be able to spot the right source to go for. So, if your customers mostly use AI Mode, you will focus on the sources AI Mode uses.
3. LLMs sometimes don't use external sources. Yeah, sorry... that's the truth. Sometimes (I haven't finished my experiment to get a specific %, but I will edit this post once I do), LLMs won't go out for the info at all, especially for queries like "Best xx for yy". Instead, they will use their pre-knowledge base and give you an answer based on their training.
4. Reddit, YouTube, and Facebook are more used as sources (in general) than well-known media outlets (like Forbes). This was pretty interesting for me, and though I can't say for sure it goes for every industry, you should check if you get the same results.
5. The results will vary depending on the country the prompt comes from. Different countries show different results for the same query, so if you're checking AI visibility manually with your ChatGPT, your results will not be accurate because LLMs will a) personalize it (if you're logged in), b) check sources most relevant to your country. This is important if your target market is not the market you're in. In this case, you'll either have to use a VPN or an AI visibility platform that allows you to choose the country for prompt tracking to get accurate results and the answer to the question: what citations impact answers.

So, my conclusion is: Yes, AI citations are important, but not for counting your own citations, but for finding the third-party citations you might squeeze your brand into, which signals to LLMs that your brand is worth recommending (if other websites or creators recommend you, it's safe for LLMs to do so as well).

So, I'm seeing a lot of posts, questions, and discussions about AI citations, and I have a feeling we're mixing two totally different things with very different impacts. That's why I decided to create this post.

So, you're not getting cited in AI... ah.... and you want to increase your AI visibility through AI citations.... well... I don't know how to put it nicely, but the fact that ChatGPT pulls your blog post as a source doesn't mean it's going to recommend your brand next time someone asks for the best XX tool.

In fact, it may as well recommend your competitor based on your comparison article (good for them!).

So, my point is that increasing the number of your very own blog posts used as sources in LLMs won't make your brand more recommended - won't get you more traffic (organic traffic is gone for good btw, but that's another story), so stop focusing on citations with your URLs. It's a good side-metric, but not the one that moves the needle.

Now, the other type of AI citations that could actually be beneficial to your brand's (true) AI visibility are the third-party sources (AI citations) LLMs already use for specific prompts. So, these are not your blog posts; these are third-party blog posts, YouTube videos, Reddit or LinkedIn posts that talk about various brands, provide insights about them, pros and cons, share experience, etc.

I've been playing a lot with AI visibility for the past 6 months, first through manual experimentation (still ongoing), and now with Mentionlytics and its AI visibility platform, and spotted a very unusual pattern:

1. Did you know that not all prompts rely on the same domains as sources? I tracked 10 prompts related to the travel industry using Mentionlytics across ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, AI Mode, and AI Overview, and overall Reddit shows up as the most cited source... but then you dig deeper and find out that for 4/10 prompts, LLMs don't use Reddit as a source at all... So, you need to go to sources by prompt to see which channel you want to invest the most.
2. Each LLM has its own go-to sources, and you have to track them separately or have a dashboard that shows you sources by LLMs to be able to spot the right source to go for. So, if your customers mostly use AI Mode, you will focus on the sources AI Mode uses.
3. LLMs sometimes don't use external sources. Yeah, sorry... that's the truth. Sometimes (I haven't finished my experiment to get a specific %, but I will edit this post once I do), LLMs won't go out for the info at all, especially for queries like "Best xx for yy". Instead, they will use their pre-knowledge base and give you an answer based on their training.
4. Reddit, YouTube, and Facebook are more used as sources (in general) than well-known media outlets (like Forbes). This was pretty interesting for me, and though I can't say for sure it goes for every industry, you should check if you get the same results.
5. The results will vary depending on the country the prompt comes from. Different countries show different results for the same query, so if you're checking AI visibility manually with your ChatGPT, your results will not be accurate because LLMs will a) personalize it (if you're logged in), b) check sources most relevant to your country. This is important if your target market is not the market you're in. In this case, you'll either have to use a VPN or an AI visibility platform that allows you to choose the country for prompt tracking to get accurate results and the answer to the question: what citations impact answers.

So, my conclusion is: Yes, AI citations are important, but not for counting your own citations, but for finding the third-party citations you might squeeze your brand into, which signals to LLMs that your brand is worth recommending (if other websites or creators recommend you, it's safe for LLMs to do so as well).

So, I'm seeing a lot of posts, questions, and discussions about AI citations, and I have a feeling we're mixing two totally different things with very different impacts. That's why I decided to create this post.

So, you're not getting cited in AI... ah.... and you want to increase your AI visibility through AI citations.... well... I don't know how to put it nicely, but the fact that ChatGPT pulls your blog post as a source doesn't mean it's going to recommend your brand next time someone asks for the best XX tool.

In fact, it may as well recommend your competitor based on your comparison article (good for them!).

So, my point is that increasing the number of your very own blog posts used as sources in LLMs won't make your brand more recommended - won't get you more traffic (organic traffic is gone for good btw, but that's another story), so stop focusing on citations with your URLs. It's a good side-metric, but not the one that moves the needle.

Now, the other type of AI citations that could actually be beneficial to your brand's (true) AI visibility are the third-party sources (AI citations) LLMs already use for specific prompts. So, these are not your blog posts; these are third-party blog posts, YouTube videos, Reddit or LinkedIn posts that talk about various brands, provide insights about them, pros and cons, share experience, etc.

I've been playing a lot with AI visibility for the past 6 months, first through manual experimentation (still ongoing), and now with Mentionlytics and its AI visibility platform, and spotted a very unusual pattern:

1. Did you know that not all prompts rely on the same domains as sources? I tracked 10 prompts related to the travel industry using Mentionlytics across ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, AI Mode, and AI Overview, and overall Reddit shows up as the most cited source... but then you dig deeper and find out that for 4/10 prompts, LLMs don't use Reddit as a source at all... So, you need to go to sources by prompt to see which channel you want to invest the most.
2. Each LLM has its own go-to sources, and you have to track them separately or have a dashboard that shows you sources by LLMs to be able to spot the right source to go for. So, if your customers mostly use AI Mode, you will focus on the sources AI Mode uses.
3. LLMs sometimes don't use external sources. Yeah, sorry... that's the truth. Sometimes (I haven't finished my experiment to get a specific %, but I will edit this post once I do), LLMs won't go out for the info at all, especially for queries like "Best xx for yy". Instead, they will use their pre-knowledge base and give you an answer based on their training.
4. Reddit, YouTube, and Facebook are more used as sources (in general) than well-known media outlets (like Forbes). This was pretty interesting for me, and though I can't say for sure it goes for every industry, you should check if you get the same results.
5. The results will vary depending on the country the prompt comes from. Different countries show different results for the same query, so if you're checking AI visibility manually with your ChatGPT, your results will not be accurate because LLMs will a) personalize it (if you're logged in), b) check sources most relevant to your country. This is important if your target market is not the market you're in. In this case, you'll either have to use a VPN or an AI visibility platform that allows you to choose the country for prompt tracking to get accurate results and the answer to the question: what citations impact answers.

So, my conclusion is: Yes, AI citations are important, but not for counting your own citations, but for finding the third-party citations you might squeeze your brand into, which signals to LLMs that your brand is worth recommending (if other websites or creators recommend you, it's safe for LLMs to do so as well).

I've just read the Semrush X post about Google introducing Google Agent, and was wondering if any of you have implemented WebMCP on your site? Did you notice some improvements?
Disclaimer: I'm not a developer, so please be gentle.

So, I encountered a strange thing today. Apparently, you can add a column in the table directly in Grammarly, but you can't delete it there; you can only do so in a Word or Google document.

Suggestion: It would be much easier for us (users) to be able to add and delete columns directly in Grammarly (if we already have the option to add a column, it's logical to have the delete option as well)
Here's what Grammarly AI Chat Bot told me

https://preview.redd.it/a80ajh6cuu4h1.png?width=437&format=png&auto=webp&s=609d632d378f070ccec830653b6d24991f26460b

So, I had to share this with you to see if anyone experienced something similar.

The other day, I opened Google Console to see what was happening with the latest blog post for my client, and I saw a weird keyword trending and driving traffic to the home page, but it had absolutely nothing to do with the topic and wasn't mentioned anywhere.

Then I saw that the website positions for that keyword (archery "4000 words") and its variations are from 3 to 5.4...

I was confused and checked the whole page, but I found nothing until I saw a small target icon with the arch just before the paragraph that says "2000 to 3000 words".

Have any of you ever experienced this kind of thing?