📘 This article explains the Citations section of the AI Visibility dashboard, part of Botify's Analytics Suite, available as an option with all Botify plans.
Overview
The Citations section of the AI Visibility dashboard shows the websites with citations in AI responses during the selected period, and how your citations compare to your competitors' citations. Citations show which domains/URLs AI answers link to, while Mentions show where brands are only named in AI answers.
The Citations section is divided into two tabs:
👉 Define how you group your own brand names and your competitors' brands, including aliases and sub-brands, in AI Visibility settings.
Insights
The Citations Insights tab surfaces key KPIs and charts for your brands' visibility through domain/URL citations in AI responses, organized into two pages:
Your brand KPIs
Citation rate: The percentage of AI responses that included a link to your brand domain during the selected period.
Non branded citation rate: The percentage of AI responses where your domain was cited even though the prompt did not contain your brand name.
Mention to citation rate: The percentage of brand mentions that are also citations (i.e., your domain appears in the cited sources).
Your brand charts
How is your citation rate evolving?
This chart shows the change in your domain citations in AI responses over the selected period, helping you see how your visibility fluctuates over time.
Which of your URLs drive the most citations?
These are the URLs most frequently cited in AI responses during the selected period. Use the toggle to view only your citations, all domain citations. The top ten citations are shown by default; click View all to see all citations during the period.
Are you mentioned without being cited?
This chart shows the percentage of AI responses in which your brand name was mentioned, but a link to your domain or URLs was not included.
In which campaign are you most cited?
This table reveals the top five AI visibility campaigns in which your brand is cited, and the number or percentage of your brand citations in each.
What is your citation rate by platform?
This chart shows a breakdown of the number or percentage of your brand citations by LLM platform.
What is your citation rate by intent?
This chart shows a breakdown of the number or percentage of your brand citations by user intent (informational, commercial, transactional, other).
How is your brand mentioned vs. cited by platform?
This chart shows a breakdown of the number or percentage of your mentions and citations by LLM platform.
How is your brand mentioned vs. cited by intent?
This chart shows a breakdown of the number or percentage of your mentions and citations by user intent.
Competitors KPIs
The Competitors page compares your citations to your competitors' citations. Botify maps each cited domain to the brand that owns it, so a competitor counts as cited when an AI response links to any of that competitor's domains.
Use the competitor dropdown at the top of the page to choose which brands to compare against:
My competitors: The competitors you selected.
Top 5 brands: The five brands most cited in AI responses during the selected period.
Exclusive presence: Percentage of AI conversations where only your brand is cited; no competitor's domain appears.
Direct competition: Percentage of AI conversations where your brand and exactly one competitor are both mentioned.
Competitor-only: Percentage of AI conversations where at least one competitor is mentioned but your brand is not.
Crowded competition: Percentage of AI conversations where your brand and 2 or more competitors are all mentioned together.
Competitors charts
Which brands are cited the most?
This table ranks your brand and your competitors by the number or percentage of AI responses that cited each brand's domains during the selected period, with the change from the previous period. Your brand is identified with a You badge.
How are citations evolving?
This chart shows the change in your competitors' domain citations in AI responses over the selected period, helping you see how visibility fluctuates over time.
Which URLs are the most cited?
This table lists the URLs most frequently cited in AI responses during the selected period, the number of answers that cited each URL, and the change from the previous period. Use the Previous and Next buttons to page through the list.
What's your share of citations?
This is a breakdown of AI answers by brand and competitor co-citation. It shows how often your domain is cited alone, alongside competitors' domains, or not at all while competitors are cited.
Who's the most cited in each topic?
This is your presence in the top topic citations compared to selected competitors. Topics are themes derived from prompts by an LLM; Learn how we generate topics.
Who's the most cited on each platform?
This chart shows a breakdown of the number or percentage for your brand and your competitors by LLM platform.
Who's the most cited in each intent?
This chart shows a breakdown of the number or percentage of citations for your brand and your competitors by user intent.
Explorer
The Citations Explorer tab contains a table of brands that had domain/URL citations in AI responses and their visibility metrics.
The Explorer tab includes the following metrics:
Domain or URL: Based on the current selection, the domain or URL that referred to the sites during the selected period.
Unique citations: The number of references to the sites in AI answers during the selected period, and the percentage of change compared to the previous period.
Citation rate: The percentage of references to the sites of all AI responses during the selected period.
Number of citations by AI bot: The number of references to the sites in AI responses by individual bots during the selected period.
❓ What's the difference between Mentions and Citations? Mentions show how often brands are named in AI answers. Citations show which domains/URLs those answers actually link to.
Mentions: The AI platform references the brand or domain in its response but does not provide a clickable link (e.g., "Botify helps you navigate the evolving search landscape" is a Botify mention, but www.botify.com is not linked in the response).
Citations: The AI platform links to a specific URL in the answer response (e.g., "You can learn more at www.botify.com" is counted in Citations).
To compare your brand mentions with your competitors', see Examining Competitors' AI Visibility Performance.
Customizing the Citation Explorer
In addition to the global AI Visibility report filters, you can customize the report display in the following ways:
Domain vs. URL: Choose to view citations by the domain that referred to the sites or the specific URLs.
Search: Search for a specific domain or URL to filter the report.
Columns: Expand the columns list to add or remove columns from the report.
Sort order: Click the arrow next to a column heading to toggle ascending and descending order.
Viewing citation details
In the Domains view, click into a metric in any row to view citation details, including the URLs by domain and the prompt answers that cited the websites.
To view the answers in which a URL was cited, select the URLs view, then click a URL:
