Mentioned is not the same as cited
Being in the answer and being the reason for the answer are two different outcomes, and only one of them compounds.
Most people measuring AI visibility count mentions. Their name appeared, the number went up, the report looks healthy. It is the wrong metric, and the gap between the two is where the work actually is.
The two outcomes
Mentioned means an assistant lists you among several options. You were in the answer. Someone reading it saw your name.
Cited means the assistant used your page as a source. You are the reason the answer says what it says.
The first is exposure. The second is influence. Only the second compounds, because a cited source tends to get cited again.
Why the distinction survives
Assistants assemble answers from a working set of sources. Once a page is in that set, it gets reused across questions in the same territory. A mention does not do that. A mention is an output; a citation is an input.
This is why two companies with identical mention counts can have completely different trajectories. One is being read every time the category comes up. The other is being repeated from somebody else's page.
How to tell which one you are
- Look for the sources, not the names. Most assistants link what they used. If your domain appears in those links, you are a source. If it only appears in the prose, you are a mention.
- Ask the question you did not write. Mention-tracking tends to use questions where you already do well. Ask the awkward adjacent one and watch what happens.
- Check whether the answer changes when your page changes. Edit something specific and re-ask. If the answer moves, you are a source.
- Count how many of the cited pages are yours. Zero is common, and it is the finding that matters.
What moves you from mentioned to cited
Being quotable. A model will not cite a page it cannot lift a clean sentence from.
- State facts with dates. "In March we measured X across 37 sites" is citable. "We are passionate about results" is not.
- Own one narrow question completely. The page that is the definitive answer to a specific problem gets cited for that problem.
- Put a number on something. Original data is the most cited content there is, because nobody else has it.
- Keep the page current. Dated and maintained beats dated and abandoned.
Where this breaks down
You cannot force a citation, and no tool can promise one. What you can do is make yourself the easiest correct answer to describe, and then check whether the description is being used. The checking is the part people skip.
ShowUp Labs separates mentions from citations, because they are not the same problem.
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