Understanding where your citations come from is fundamental to Answer Engine Optimization. Is your own domain driving visibility, or are media outlets, institutional sources, and social platforms doing the heavy lifting?
Today, we're launching enhanced Citation Categories to answer that question.
Citation Categories explained
Every cited domain is now classified into one of eight categories:
See the knowledge base for detailed category descriptions.
Profound automatically classifies millions of domains, with a curated override list for edge cases. The result: accurate, consistent categorization across your entire citation landscape.
Citation Categories give you the clarity to answer questions like:
- How much of your AI visibility comes from editorial coverage vs. social mentions?
- Are institutional sources like Wikipedia driving citations in your category?
- Where are competitors earning media coverage that you're not?
What the data reveals
Using Citation Categories, we analyzed 27 million citations across ChatGPT, Gemini, and AI Overviews to understand how AI platforms build their answers.
For this analysis, we grouped categories into four buckets: Brand (Owned, Competition, Other), Media (Earned Media, PR Wire), Institution, and Social.
AI platforms build diversified portfolios
Even when users ask directly about a brand, AI platforms don't rely on that brand alone. They pull from media, social, institutions, and competitors to construct a complete picture.
Brand citations represent 54-73% depending on the platform, meaning 27-46% of citations come from outside the brand even on brand-specific prompts. While owned content represents just 4.3% of citations on category prompts, those URLs land in the top 5% of all cited domains by citation count.
The mix shifts based on prompt intent. When users mention a brand by name ("Is Acme Inc worth it?"), social citations jump from 5.4% to 15%, a 3x increase compared to open-ended category prompts ("What is the best RV trucking service?"). Reddit becomes the credibility check, especially on ChatGPT where it makes up 8% of all citations on prompts mentioning a brand.
Different platforms, different bets
Each AI platform weights source types differently. The overall distribution of citations is similar across platforms, but key distinctions emerge in the third-party mix.
Perplexity cites social at 19.4% compared to ChatGPT at 5.3%. ChatGPT leads in institutional citations at 15.3%, largely due to Wikipedia. Google's platforms show the highest brand citation share at 67-73%.
Industry mix varies
Citation composition shifts significantly by vertical. Some industries skew institutional, others skew media-heavy, reflecting where credible information is most available.
Healthcare & Life Sciences leans institutional at 30.3%. Telecommunications leads in media at 34.7%. Retail & eCommerce sees 29.7% media citations.
Get started
Enhanced Citation Categories are available today in Answer Engine Insights. Understanding who shapes AI answers about your brand is the first step to building a visibility strategy that works across every platform.
Reach out to our team for a demo.
