Glossary
AI citation
An AI citation is the closest thing the answer layer has to a footnote — and a clue about what the assistant actually trusts.
In short
An AI citation is a source an AI assistant links to or names as the basis for part of its answer. Citations matter because they show, at least partly, which public pages and conversations the assistant leaned on — and being cited near a buyer question is often what puts a brand into the recommendation in the first place.
Why it matters
A citation is both a signal and a lever. It reveals which sources the assistant trusts for a question, and earning a place in those sources is one of the more direct ways to influence the answer a buyer reads.
Citation is not the same as a backlink
A backlink helps search crawlers; a citation is an assistant choosing to lean on a source in a written answer. A page can earn many backlinks and never be cited, while a well-placed comparison post gets cited repeatedly.
How Signalbat reads it
Signalbat tracks which sources are cited or relied on across your buyer questions, separates the ones that repeatedly shape high-intent answers from background noise, and connects each to a page or proof gap worth working on.