Glossary
Citation
A brand or domain named, linked, or otherwise identified as a source inside an AI engine's answer to a prompt. The base unit every score on this site is built from.
Definition
A citation is a brand or domain appearing as a named or linked source inside an AI engine's answer to a prompt, whether as an explicit source link (the harder, more reliable signal) or a brand-name mention in the answer text (a softer signal, more vulnerable to false positives on common-word brand names).
Citation is the base unit every other measurement on this site builds from: share of answers, selection, absorption, and confidence intervals are all different ways of summarizing citations counted across a declared prompt set, engine set, and run count.
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See how this is measured
This term is part of the same declared methodology every score on this site follows: which prompts, which engines, how many runs.
Related terms
Share of Answers
The percentage of answers, across a declared prompt set, engine set, and run count, in which a brand was cited. The headline number behind every leaderboard on this site.
Selection
Whether a brand enters the pool of sources a model draws from at all, before absorption is even possible. Driven mostly by classic authority signals: backlinks, brand recognition, third-party mentions.
Absorption
Once a brand is selected as a source, how much it actually shapes the substance of the answer, versus sitting unused in a source list. Driven by extractable evidence density: definitions, statistics, comparisons, and structured content a model can lift directly.
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