Citation share
Citation share is the percentage of the citations shown in AI answers for a query that point to your site, out of all citations shown for that query.
Example
For one search, AI answers display 20 citations across all sites, and 5 of them link to your pages. Your citation share for that search is 5 out of 20, or 25%.
Where the term is used
Microsoft reports citation share in Bing Webmaster Tools. Bing's announcement defines it as the percentage of citations attributed to your site out of all citations shown across all sites for the same grounding query, in a report covering Microsoft Copilot, Bing and select partner AI experiences.
Why it matters
Citation share and share of voice answer different questions. Share of voice counts how often your brand is named; citation share counts how often your pages are used as a source. A brand can be named without being cited, and a page can be cited in an answer that recommends a competitor.
How Stellarcast handles it
Stellarcast classifies each source an AI answer cites as your own site, a competitor's or an earned third-party source, counts your owned citations per engine, and shows which competitor domain an engine cited when it did not cite you.
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