AURA Dimension · Paid

Citation Depth

When AI cites you, does it cite your own pages or only third-party content about you? High Citation Depth means you own your narrative.

Overview

What Citation Depth measures

Citation Depth probes ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity with live grounding ON, then parses the response for source URLs. The score measures the ratio of citations to your own domain vs third-party sources (Wikipedia, news sites, forums, reviews).

High Citation Depth = you own the narrative. AI quotes your docs, blog posts, and product pages directly. You wrote those words; you control how AI describes you. Low Citation Depth = third-party narrative. AI mentions you, but only via what others say (reviews, news, forum debates). You depend on how those sources frame you.

How It Works

How the citation probe works

The same 10 prompts used for Share of Voice are run with grounding ON. We parse each AI response for source URLs (links, citations, footnotes) and classify each one as: your-domain, third-party-positive, third-party-neutral, or third-party-negative.

  • link Your-domain citations — AI cites your own pages: docs, blog, product pages, About. Highest weight in the score.
  • menu_book Third-party positive — reviews / press / docs that frame you favourably. Counts but at lower weight than your-domain.
  • balance Third-party neutral — Wikipedia, factual mentions in lists. Neutral weight.
  • trending_down Third-party negative — complaint threads, negative reviews, controversy coverage. Counts as a citation but feeds the Risk modifier (not Citation Depth directly).
Taking Action

How to improve Citation Depth

  • data_object Ship structured content. FAQ schema, comparison tables, clear definition paragraphs. AI prefers to cite content it can extract cleanly. Buzzword-heavy marketing pages rarely get cited even when AI knows about them.
  • support_agent Make sure Agent Access is high. If live grounding can't fetch your page, AI can't cite it. Fix Agent Access first.
  • format_list_bulleted Write in answer-shaped chunks. Phrase your docs as "X is Y because Z" or "To do X: 1. ... 2. ... 3. ..." — the formats AI prefers to quote directly.
  • link_off Audit broken-doc paths. If your /docs/ section is half-broken, half-redirecting, AI gives up and cites Stack Overflow instead. Run a link audit on your most-cited paths.
FAQ

Frequently asked questions

  • What does high vs low Citation Depth mean?expand_more
    High = AI cites your own pages directly when grounded. You control the narrative. Low = AI cites third-party sources about you (reviews, news, forum threads). You're at the mercy of how others describe you. Both can lead to mentions, but high Citation Depth gives you direct narrative control.
  • How is Citation Depth different from AI Brand Recognition?expand_more
    AI Brand Recognition tests offline recall (grounding off) — what AI knows from training. Citation Depth tests live grounding (grounding on) — whether AI cites your pages or third-party sources when it does look. They can disagree: a brand can have low Recognition but high Citation Depth (AI doesn't know you offline but finds and cites your docs when prompted).
  • How do I get cited by AI directly?expand_more
    Three things help: (1) ship structured, well-organised content (FAQ schema, comparison tables, clear definitions) so AI can extract direct answers; (2) make sure your Agent Access score is high so live grounding can actually fetch your pages; (3) have docs / blog posts that match the natural-language phrasing of category queries.

Score your Citation Depth

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