Reading Citations & AI Answers
Explore the Citations page to see exactly how AI engines like Perplexity and ChatGPT answer prompts about your brand and which sources they cite.
What you'll learn
- Switch between AI answers and cited URLs
- Read a real engine answer and its sources
- Compare how different engines respond
- Locate the source links behind each answer
Step-by-step walkthrough
- 1
The Citations page reveals the actual answers AI engines give for your prompts, and the sources they pull from.
Citations - 2
Use these two tabs to toggle your view. 'AI answers' shows the full engine responses, while 'Cited URLs' focuses on the source links.
AI answers - 3
Switch to 'Cited URLs' anytime you want to focus purely on which web pages the engines referenced.
Cited URLs - 4
Each answer block is labeled with the engine and model that produced it. Here, Perplexity used the 'sonar' model to answer your prompt.
Perplexity - 5
Below each answer you'll find the exact source links the engine cited, like hagiasophiatickets.com and en.wikipedia.org, so you can see where your visibility comes from.
Source: - 6
Scroll down to compare other engines. ChatGPT, using gpt-4o-mini, answers the same prompt differently, helping you spot which engine favors which sources.
ChatGPT - 7
Click 'Show full answer' to expand any response and read the complete text the engine generated.
Show full answer
Test yourself
What does the Citations page primarily reveal?
- The total ad spend for each prompt
- The actual answers AI engines give and the sources they pull from
- The keyword rankings of competitor websites
- The number of users searching each prompt
The lesson states the Citations page reveals the actual answers AI engines give for your prompts and the sources they pull from.
What is the difference between the 'AI answers' tab and the 'Cited URLs' tab?
- 'AI answers' shows full engine responses, while 'Cited URLs' focuses on the source links
- 'AI answers' shows source links, while 'Cited URLs' shows full responses
- Both tabs show identical information
- 'Cited URLs' shows ad placements, while 'AI answers' shows organic results
According to the lesson, 'AI answers' shows the full engine responses, while 'Cited URLs' focuses on the source links.
What information labels each answer block?
- The date and time the answer was generated
- The engine and model that produced it
- The user who submitted the prompt
- The number of citations included
The lesson explains that each answer block is labeled with the engine and model that produced it, such as Perplexity using the 'sonar' model.
Why might you scroll down to compare other engines like ChatGPT?
- To delete responses you don't like
- To change the model used by each engine
- To spot which engine favors which sources
- To merge answers into a single response
The lesson notes that ChatGPT answers the same prompt differently, helping you spot which engine favors which sources.
Make your brand visible in AI
Put what you saw into practice on your own brand — start free.