When your brand is missing from AI answers, look at the pages those answers cite.
Those sources can show you which websites AI platforms rely on for the prompts that matter to your business, which competitor pages appear repeatedly, and where your brand is absent.
The Sources report in Semrush’s Prompt Tracking shows the most cited domains and pages across your target prompts, so you can spot citation gaps and close them.
Use the report to find:
- Competitor content earning citations where yours isn’t
- Third-party pages that influence AI answers in your category
- Sources that get cited when your brand isn’t mentioned by AI
- Citation gaps you can close through content updates or outreach
This is similar to the competitive research SEOs already do, but extended to the sources shaping AI-generated answers.
Why should you track AI citation sources?
Tracking AI citation sources shows you which websites AI platforms reference when answering questions relevant to your business.
AI platforms often retrieve information from the web when generating answers (this is known as retrieval augmented generation, or RAG).
The citations in those answers show you which pages contributed information during this process.
But citations and brand mentions measure different things:
- A citation links to a page used as a source
- A brand mention means your brand name appears in the AI-generated answer
Your website can earn citations without your brand being recommended. And your brand can appear in an answer without your website being cited.
That’s why it helps to look at both together.
If another domain is repeatedly cited across important prompts while your brand is missing from the associated answers, you have a citation gap worth investigating.
The Sources report in Position Tracking lets you track those gaps, so you can see who's influencing valuable AI answers in your topic and find your opportunities to get more visibility.
Step 1: Build a target prompt list to track
Before you can track citation sources, you need a list of prompts to track. This list defines the scope of AI answers you're monitoring.
Start with prompts that reflect the questions your customers actually ask, covering:
- Problems they’re trying to solve
- Products they’re evaluating
- Features or requirements they care about
- Your brand and competitors
For example, a mattress brand like Amerisleep could track questions such as “What are good mattress recommendations for shoulder pain?”
Find these questions by exploring sales and support conversations, customer interviews and surveys, and relevant forums or online communities where your customers look for help.
Reddit communities are an easy way to spot questions where people are looking for advice, and may ask the same questions to AI.
You can also use Semrush’s Prompt Research tool to discover related questions people ask AI platforms, or follow our guide to prompt research for AI SEO.
Once you have a relevant set of prompts to track, set up your campaign inside the Position Tracking tool.
Select your target AI platform, location, and add your prompts to start tracking daily data points.
Step 2: Read the Sources report
Once your campaign is running, open the “Sources” tab.
The metrics at the top of the report give you an overview of your visibility across the prompt set.
- Tracked prompts: The number of prompts in your campaign
- Source pages: The number of pages cited across answers to those prompts
- Your brand mentions: How often your brand appears in the associated answers
For example, the campaign shown above tracks 20 prompts in Google AI Mode and surfaces 49 source pages, with the brand mentioned in one of the associated answers.
These numbers give you a quick sense of how large the source pool is and how often your brand appears in the answers you’re tracking. They can change as the campaign collects new daily snapshots.
If you’re tracking the same prompts across multiple AI platforms, use the dropdown at the top of the report to switch between them.
In this project, the same 20 prompts surface 40 source pages in ChatGPT, with no brand mention.
Next, look at which types of sources contribute to those answers.
See which source categories appear most
Focus on the “Sources by Category” widget.
Use this view to understand what kinds of sources AI platforms rely on most across your tracked prompts.
For example, ecommerce and retail sites make up 76% of sources in Amerisleep’s AI Mode report, compared with 38% in ChatGPT. Knowledge bases account for 6% of AI Mode’s sources, compared with 33% in ChatGPT.
These differences help you see which types of sources get cited on each platform. In this campaign, retailers account for most of AI Mode’s sources, while knowledge bases make up a larger share in ChatGPT.
Compare your domain’s share with the other categories to see where your content is contributing and where other sources are shaping the answers.
Then, review the specific pages earning those citations.
Find the exact pages cited most often
You can explore citations by page or domain.
Use the “Pages” view to see which individual URLs are cited the most across your tracked prompts.
For each page, use the following columns to understand its citation coverage and your brand’s presence in the associated answers:
- Cited for prompts: The number of tracked prompts where the page is cited
- Your mentions: How often your brand appears in the associated answers
- Diff: The change in your brand mentions since the previous update
- Mention rate: The percentage of associated answers that mention your brand
Benchmark your domain’s citations against competitors
For a broader comparison, switch to the “Domains” view to see how your own citation presence compares with competitor and third-party sources.
This gives you a quick baseline of how much of a gap you have to close to catch up to the competition. It also shows you what’s working in your competitors’ strategies.
For example, in Amerisleep’s AI Mode report, Tampa Mattress is cited across 11 tracked prompts and Sleep Number across 10.
Meanwhile, Amerisleep’s own domain is cited for just one.
Expand each domain to see the specific pages being cited. Then, open those pages to understand which questions they answer and what information they provide.
Look for relevant topics or details your own content could cover more fully.
Next, review the third-party sources being cited.
In the same report, U.S. News is cited across six tracked prompts, but none of the associated answers mention Amerisleep.
It’s a good idea to look for sources with a high “Cited for Prompts” count and a low “Mention rate” for your brand.
These sources are getting cited often in answers that skip over your brand, which makes them good targets for AI citation outreach. As with link building outreach, the goal is to get your brand mentioned across the pages that influence relevant AI answers.
Open each cited page and look for:
- Whether it covers a use case relevant to your product
- Whether your brand appears on the page
- Whether competitors are included
- Whether the information is current
If the page could be improved with an update including your brand, consider it an outreach target. Prioritize pages cited across several relevant prompts where your brand would be a useful addition.
What to do with the output
Once you’ve identified citation gaps, use the report to take the next step on each opportunity. Depending on the site, that next step could mean conducting outreach, building your own version of a better page, or updating an existing page on your site.
For a source page worth investigating, click “Get mentions” beside it.
The panel shows the prompts where that page was cited, whether your brand appeared in the associated answers, and recommendations for earning more mentions.
For example, one URL in this project was cited across 10 tracked prompts.
Amerisleep appeared in just one of the 10 associated answers, giving the source a 10% Mention rate for the brand.
The panel also provides recommendations based on the source type and citation pattern. In this case, Semrush recommends actions such as studying the cited retail sources, optimizing product detail pages, applying product schema, and building buyer-focused content.
Use these recommendations to grow your presence across the pages and topics AI platforms already rely on.
Check these sources regularly, since earning a citation or mention one day doesn’t guarantee your brand will continue appearing in every future AI answer. Prompt Tracking updates daily, and you can export the report to Excel, CSV, or Google Sheets or schedule reports daily, weekly, or monthly.
FAQs
How is the Sources report different from Mentions or Visibility Overview?
Mentions show how often your brand name appears in AI answers.
Sources shows the domains and URLs cited across the prompts in your Prompt Tracking campaign.
Visibility Overview gives you a broader view of your brand’s mentions, citations, and cited pages across Semrush’s AI visibility database.
Use Visibility Overview to assess your overall AI presence. To monitor specific prompts and analyze the sources cited in their answers, you can use the Prompt Tracking tool.
For a broader competitive workflow, see our guide to benchmarking brand mentions in AI answers.
Can I filter Sources by a specific competitor or domain category?
Yes. You can search for a specific domain or URL, or filter sources by categories such as:
- Your domain
- Competitors
- Social platforms
- Knowledge bases
- Other domains
You can also filter by Mention Rate and prompt text to narrow the report to a specific topic or set of prompts.
See the Sources report filters for more details.
How many prompts can I track, and does that affect Source coverage?
The number of prompts you can track depends on your Semrush plan:
- AI Visibility Toolkit only: 25 prompts
- Starter: 50 prompts
- Pro+: 100 prompts
- Advanced: 200 prompts
Enterprise plans offer custom prompt tracking limits.
The Sources report analyzes citations across the prompts you track. So, tracking a broader set of relevant prompts can help you see more of the domains and pages influencing AI answers in your category.
Does the Sources report work across ChatGPT, AI Mode, and Gemini?
Yes. The workflow is similar across supported platforms: track your prompts, then review the sources cited in their answers.
But the sources themselves can differ by platform. If you want to compare results, use similar prompts, locations, and language settings so the comparison is meaningful.
Google AI Overviews are separate from AI Mode. For that workflow, see how to track AI Overviews with Semrush.
Start tracking your AI citation sources with Semrush
Start with the prompts that matter most to your customers.
Then, use the Sources report in Prompt Tracking to find the domains and pages AI platforms cite for those questions.
Look for sources that appear repeatedly when your brand is absent, investigate why they’re being cited, and turn the findings into specific content or outreach actions.
Keep monitoring the same prompts to see whether your pages gain citations and your brand starts appearing in more of the associated answers.
