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Features / Sources & citations

Sources & citations

AI citation tracking that connects answers to sources

AI citation tracking identifies the URLs and domains credited as sources in AI answers. AEO Pal, the AEO & GEO platform, connects Source Map, Citation Gaps, and plan-scoped community and press analysis with captured answer evidence, helping agencies distinguish brand mentions from the sources an engine actually cites.

All plans

Source Map

Source Map shows the third-party URLs and domains AI engines cite for your prompts. It connects the answer to the external pages credited as its sources.

Inspect the cited page before deciding what the finding means. A directory, publication, or discussion may answer a different part of the question from the brand’s own website. For an agency, this context makes a client conversation more precise: which source was credited, for which prompt, and how did the brand appear? Source Map is available on every plan.

All plans

Citation Gaps

Citation Gaps highlights sources cited for your target prompts where competitors appear and your brand does not.

Use that difference to frame a review of the source and the buyer question. A gap is not proof that a publisher has made a mistake or that adding your brand will be possible. The finding helps prioritize investigation; it does not provide automated outreach or control over an external website. Compare it with Ghost Citations, which describes a brand mention without a link.

Agency and Enterprise

Community & Press Sources

Community & Press Sources tracks Reddit and Quora threads, YouTube transcripts, and the publications and journalists AI engines cite in your category.

Agency and Enterprise include this feature. The source context can help a team understand which conversations and publications are being credited for its prompts. Review the actual material and its relevance before choosing an action. Community Reply Drafts is a separate Enterprise feature: it drafts replies for the user to post, rather than automatically publishing to third-party communities.

From a finding to a decision

How do you investigate a citation gap?

Keep the prompt, captured answer, and credited page together when interpreting a source finding.
  1. 01

    Read the answer

    Check whether the brand is named, whether its own site is linked, and which sources the answer credits. These are separate observations.
  2. 02

    Inspect the source

    Review the cited URL and the question it addresses. Compare competitor appearances with the information available on the brand’s own pages.
  3. 03

    Choose work you control

    A first-party content review may reveal a useful update. Use Content Studio and Fix Queue for changes on your website without assuming control over a publisher or engine.

Follow the evidence

Sources & citations: an illustrative example

The fictional example distinguishes a cited external page from a gap the team can investigate. It does not show a customer result.

Illustrative example · Fieldnote

Illustrative source · directory.example

A directory is credited

The sample AI answer cites directory.example for a comparison involving Fieldnote’s category. Source Map records the relationship between the prompt and that credited third-party URL. A source link and a mention of Fieldnote answer different reporting questions.

Plan availability

Which plans include these features?

Source Map and Citation Gaps are included on every plan. Community & Press Sources is included on Agency and Enterprise. Ghost Citations is also available on every plan and has its own detailed feature page.
Sources & citations feature availability by plan
FeatureStarterAgencyEnterprise
Source MapIncludedIncludedIncluded
Citation GapsIncludedIncludedIncluded
Community & Press Sources—IncludedIncluded

Keep the workflow connected

How do sources connect to content decisions?

Live Capture preserves the answer, chat history, citations, and mentions from the consumer interface. Source Map and Citation Gaps give the team related views of those sources. Ghost Citations identifies an unlinked brand mention; Answer Hijack Alerts identifies competitor content cited for a question about the brand.

Content Studio and Fix Queue support work on your own website after that investigation. A useful brief names the buyer question, relevant source, missing information, and target page. Approved or authorized publishing then changes the brand’s content rather than promising a particular decision by an AI engine.

Compare allowances and pricing on the AEO Pal pricing page.

FAQ

Sources & citations questions

Ghost Citations are mentions of your brand in an AI answer without a link to your website. AEO Pal detects these unlinked mentions on every plan. They help distinguish being talked about from being cited, alongside Source Map and Citation Gaps, which show the sources cited for your prompts and where competitors appear.

Answer Hijack Alerts flag when an AI engine answers a question about your brand using a competitor’s content and cites that competitor as the authority. AEO Pal includes these alerts on every plan. They identify a specific citation problem you can investigate in the captured answer and address through content on your own website.

AEO Pal runs your prompts through the live consumer AI interface from the country, state, or city you choose. Live Capture stores the full answer, chat history, citations, brand mentions, and competitor mentions. Every plan refreshes daily. The method records the interface buyers use rather than relying on developer API output.

No. Community Reply Drafts, available on Enterprise, prepares replies for high-authority Reddit and LinkedIn threads that AI engines cite. The user posts those replies. This is separate from Publish Connectors, which publish approved or authorized website changes to WordPress, Shopify, and Webflow. Community Reply Drafts does not provide automated third-party posting.

Connect the evidence to your next website task.

Start with your website, or book a demo to discuss your requirements.
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