How to read citation tracking results

Citation tracking shows whether AI engines cite your business when people ask the kinds of questions your prospects ask.

Your visibility number

At the top of your audit results and your monthly report is AI search visibility, a single percentage. It's the share of all the probes we ran that cited your site directly.

Most new customers start near 0% and climb slowly. The climb is gradual. AI engines update their behavior on the order of weeks, not days. Your dashboard shows the movement in plain language under Your progress: "first reading," "no change since last check," or "up 5 since last check."

Cited, mentioned, not found

Every question we ask, on every engine, comes back as one of three results:

• Cited. The engine pointed to your website in its answer. This is the win.
• Mentioned. Your business name or domain appears in the answer, but the engine didn't point to your site. You're in the conversation, not the recommendation.
• Not found. No sign of you.

Only Cited counts toward your visibility percentage. Mentioned is the useful middle state to watch, because it usually turns into Cited once there's a solid page for the engine to point at.

The query-by-query results

Below the summary, one row per question and engine, so you can see exactly where you stand.

Use this to find:

• Questions no engine cites you for. These are your highest-value targets. Your monthly plan turns them into content topics automatically.
• Questions one engine cites but others don't. Often a content gap specific to how that engine gathers its sources.
• Questions every engine cites. Wins. Note which page produced the win, then replicate the structure for the ones you're not yet winning.

Which engines we check

We probe the leading AI assistants: Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity. Which ones run in a given month depends on which we're currently sampling, so your results may not show all four.

How often it runs

The current plan refreshes weekly. Legacy Starter and Growth subscriptions refresh monthly.

Either way, your monthly report shows the per-engine breakdown, with cited, mentioned, and not-found counts, and the change since last month. You can also run a fresh audit yourself at any time on any plan, which updates your visibility number on the spot.

Changing what we track

The questions come from your target market settings. Edit them any time at your target market page. See How to update your target queries.

Something look wrong? Email hello@scowty.com and we'll dig in with you.