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What is an AI citation, and how is it different from a backlink?
An AI citation is a source link an assistant shows next to a claim in its answer. Unlike a backlink it accumulates nothing: it is decided per question, per session, and it disappears the moment the model retrieves something else. The value is the traffic and the credit in that answer, not any stored authority.
A backlink is a deposit, a citation is a verdict
A link earned in 2019 still counts today. A citation is recomputed from scratch for every question, and being cited yesterday does not improve the odds tomorrow. That makes citation less durable, and also more winnable, because there is no ten-year head start to overcome.
What gets cited
Pages that answer the question directly, in their own words, near the top. Original figures, because a model reaching for a number needs a source to attach it to. Definitions stated cleanly. Comparisons in table form. Long persuasive essays are read and rarely quoted, because no single fragment of them stands alone.
The traffic is small and the visitors are not
Referral volume from assistants is a fraction of search, and the people arriving have already had their question answered and chosen to click anyway. They tend to be much further along than a search visitor. Judge the channel on what happens after the click rather than on its size.
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