The Citations (formerly the Sources page) workflow in your Visibility Audit (formerly known as a report) helps you understand exactly why AI models cited a specific page, which prompts and personas triggered the citation, and which brands the models named alongside yours in their answers. The "Citation details" panel is your primary tool for this analysis.
Where do I start a Citations analysis?
There are two entry points to the Citations data in your Visibility Audit:
- From the Visibility Audit dashboard, scroll to the bottom and click "View all citations" on the "Top citations" card.
- In the left sidebar under "Monitor," click "Citations" (labeled "Citation Audit" on the Pro plan).
Either path opens the full Citations page, which lists every domain cited in the Visibility Audit. From there, click any domain to open its detail view.
What do I see when I click into a domain?
The domain detail view shows every URL on that domain that was cited in the Visibility Audit:
- The domain name and total citation count for the domain. Competitor domains are marked with a "Competitor" badge and include a 3-step plan: review the prompts driving competitor citations, generate targeted content that answers those prompts, and publish on your own domain to build authority.
- A list of every cited URL, with each URL's citation count on the right.
- Filters for "All Models," "All Personas," and "All Topics" to narrow the URL list to a specific model, persona, or topic.
To analyze any single URL in depth, click the arrow at the end of its row. This opens the "Citation details" panel on the right side of the screen.
What is in the Citation details panel?
The "Citation details" panel is the clearest view you have of how a specific URL shapes AI answers. It shows:
- The cited URL, with a favicon and an "Open citation" link that opens the page in a new tab.
- "Citations": the total number of times this exact URL was cited across the Visibility Audit.
- "Mentions - in answers": the brands the AI models named in their answers in conversations where this URL was cited. These are the brands being recommended or referenced alongside yours, or instead of yours, when models reach for this URL to answer a prompt. Brands flagged as competitors in this Visibility Audit are marked with a competitor icon next to their name.
- "Prompts that cited this URL": every prompt where an AI model cited this URL. Each entry shows the persona who asked, the exact question, and the AI model or models that cited the URL in their answer. Click any prompt to open the conversation context and read the full AI answer.
The "Mentions - in answers" section gives you a fast read on who is being recommended in the same answers as you. If competitors are showing up here often and your brand is not, that is a clear gap to investigate.
How do I use Citations data to improve my AI visibility?
A few starting moves:
- Benchmark against competitors. Look at the URLs cited from competitor domains and note what kind of content the models pull from, such as news pages, support docs, blog posts, or comparison pages.
- Check your own citations. Check whether your domain is cited at all, which prompts triggered the citations you have, and whether your brand appears in "Mentions - in answers" on the URLs driving citations in your category.
- Spot gaps in authority. If high-authority domains in your category are not citing your brand, that is a signal to improve content discoverability, build relationships, or pitch the site directly.
- Prioritize by persona. See which personas trigger the strongest citations and focus your content on the questions those personas are asking.
- Track by AI model. Different models pull from different domains. If your visibility is uneven across models, the "Citation details" panel shows which URLs each model favors.
Once you have spotted the gaps, your next moves fall into Gumshoe's three levers:
- Technical: make sure your content is crawlable and uses structured data so AI models can find and read it.
- Content: publish content on your own domain that answers the prompts your personas are asking, and cover the angles competitors are getting cited for.
- External influence: build relationships with or pitch the high-citation domains in your category.
Pro tip: Start with one competitor domain that shows a high citation count where your brand is missing from "Mentions - in answers." Open the prompts driving those citations, then run a Technical Audit on your matching page so you fix the highest-impact crawlability and structure issues first, before you invest in new content.