# What is AI citation?

An AI citation is a source an AI assistant links to in its answer to show where a claim came from.

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Limelit counts AI citations on every account, including the free one; it only sees the citations an engine returns, so an engine that shows no sources adds no citations.

## Definition

An AI citation is a source an AI assistant links to in its answer to show where a claim came from. In Limelit, Cited counts them per source: How many AI answers actually CITED this source in the response. Cited is the subset of Retrieved that made it into the answer.

## More terms

- [AI share of voice](https://limelit.co/glossary/ai-share-of-voice)
- [AI visibility score](https://limelit.co/glossary/ai-visibility-score)
- [AI search monitoring](https://limelit.co/glossary/ai-search-monitoring)
- [llms.txt](https://limelit.co/glossary/llms-txt)
- [The full glossary](https://limelit.co/glossary)

Questions

## The things people ask us first.

### Is an AI citation the same as a mention?

No. A mention is the brand's name in the answer text. A citation is a source the answer links to, which can be your page, a competitor's, or a third party's.

### What is the difference between retrieved and cited?

Retrieved counts every answer that fetched a source while researching. Cited is the subset of those where the source made it into the answer.

### Do all AI engines show citations?

No. Some engines list sources on every answer and some rarely do, so citation counts are compared engine by engine, not as one pooled number.

### Can I see which of my pages AI answers cite?

Yes. Limelit lists the cited URLs per source and marks which ones are yours, a tracked competitor's, or an independent site's.