EST. MMXXVI · THE INSTITUTION OF RECORD FOR AI CITATION · OPEN METHODOLOGY
THE AI CITATION INSTITUTEEx corpore, auctoritas.the answers
How AI decides who to name.
Direct answers to how assistants retrieve, choose, and cite businesses — and how to measure where you stand. Every number on these pages traces to a measurement we published; where we don't have data, the page says so instead of guessing.
Foundations
What GEO/AEO is, and why an AI answer can leave you out.
- What is generative engine optimization (GEO)?→
- What is answer engine optimization (AEO)?→
- Why doesn't AI recommend my business?→
- GEO vs SEO — what's the difference?→
- Does an SEO ranking mean AI visibility?→
- How do AI engines choose citations?→
- What is AI citation share?→
- What is a hallucinated recommendation?→
- Why does AI confuse my brand with another company?→
Getting cited, engine by engine
The retrieval pathway into each assistant, and what it rewards.
Measurement
How to read where you actually stand, and track it over time.
Technical
Crawlers, schema, freshness, and the levers that actually move.
- Does GPTBot execute JavaScript?→
- What is an llms.txt file?→
- Does schema markup help AI visibility?→
- How often do AI engines refresh their sources?→
- What are the AI crawler user-agents?→
- Should I block AI crawlers?→
- How many inbound links do you need for AI citation?→
- What writing style do AI engines cite?→
- How long until AI cites a new site?→
By vertical
Where the query shapes and the tool landscape are vertical-specific.
See what AI says about your brand right now — free, on a live engine.