METRICS

Share of Answer / Share of AI Citations

A bright central sphere followed by a long tail of rapidly diminishing spheres fading into darkness, none dominant, representing a long-tailed citation distribution.
Even the most-cited domain rarely exceeds 5% share on a single platform.

IN ONE SENTENCE

Share of answer is the proportion of citation sources across a question set's AI answers that point to one domain — it measures who the AI trusts, not who it names.

AI answers usually carry a list of sources. Share of answer measures how much of that list is yours. It sits closer to 'who does the AI trust' than mention rate does, and it is harder to move, because roughly three quarters of citation weight sits on sources you do not own.

OUR POSITION

Do not treat this as a metric to dominate. Measurements show even the most-cited domains rarely exceed 5% share on a single platform — citations are long-tail, so the goal is reliable presence in the source list, not ownership of it.

01

How it is calculated

Share of answer = citations pointing to the domain ÷ all citations across that batch of answers. It can also be rolled up by brand where one brand owns several domains.

The denominator has to be fixed the same way: one question set, one platform mix, one time window. Before comparing windows, check the platforms have not changed how sources are surfaced — that display changes often.

02

Why it is harder than mention rate

Being named only requires the model to know you. Being cited requires a specific piece of content that is retrievable, checkable and credible enough to quote — which takes owned content and third-party sources together.

Most citation weight sits off your own site (industry estimates put it around three quarters), so owned content alone hits a ceiling. That is why share of answer moves more slowly than mention rate.

03

Collection notes

Platforms surface sources very differently: some list them, some only footnote them, some show nothing. No display does not mean no retrieval — those platforms have to be estimated indirectly.

Decide up front whether repeated citations of one domain inside a single answer count once or several times, and keep it consistent.

Data behind this page

40.1%

Reddit's share of citations in AI answers

Source：Semrush, 150,000+ citations across 5,000 keywords，2025-06

under 5%

Ceiling on any single domain's citation share on one platform

Source：Evertune, 200M prompts，2026

rarely above 5%

Share ceiling for the most-cited domain on a single platform

Source：Evertune, ~200M prompts (secondary source, distribution shape only)，2026

Sources

  1. [1]GEO: Generative Engine Optimization．Aggarwal et al., KDD 2024．2024
  2. [2]Citation domain distribution across ~200M prompts．Evertune (via 2026 industry review; secondary source, distribution shape only)．2026

Updated 2026-08-10